Maintaining the integrity of the judicial process In the Constitution of South Africa, Chapter 9 deals with State Institutions supporting Constitutional Democracy. Under section 194, Removal from Office it states the following; “(2) A resolution of the National Assembly concerning the removal from office of— (a) the Public Protector or the Auditor-General must be adopted […]
Criteria for the selection of judicial leaders must reflect the search for jurisprudential leaders. The role of Judge Presidents A Judge President is the administrative head of a High Court Division in South Africa. The Judge President is expected to provide effective leadership to the division to ensure that judges in the division perform their […]
The integrity of the judiciary in South Africa has never been in question. Or so Judges Matter has thought. It has been our firm view that judges and a judiciary that acts without fear or favour have and has been the thin black line between South Africa and state capture and a collapse in governance […]
The judicial system in South Africa comprises of the following courts of law: the Constitutional Court; the Supreme Court of Appeal; the High Courts, the Magistrates’ Courts; and any other court established by legislation (such as the Labour Court). In her thesis on the transformation of the South African magistracy published in 2007, Vanja Karth […]
In May, Labour Court Judge, Anton Steenkamp, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly as the result of a black mamba bite while he was on holiday in Zambia. We feel the loss of Judge Steenkamp as being a blow to the bench as well as to our community more broadly. We mourn his passing. We share […]
Progressive constitutional democracies from around the world are anchored on certain fundamental values and principles which include separation of powers and accountability. South Africa is regarded in certain circles as a model of constitutional democracy, especially for many African States. This view is not without a valid basis. Notwithstanding a myriad of challenges confronting it, […]
The Judge President of the Western Cape asked a number of questions in the October 2017 hearings of the JSC. These questions went to what are called the skewed briefing patterns that exist, generally referring to how members of the advocates’ profession obtain work from attorneys. He asked Mr Papier: The issue Mr Papier, of […]
This article was written by Paul Hoffman SC and was originally published in the Daily Maverick on 13 August 2018. Daily Maverick columnist, Stephen Grootes, has cast aspersions on the legitimacy of the judiciary in a recent wide-ranging piece of political analysis. It is important to interrogate the legitimacy of the judiciary carefully as it […]
Last week Paul Hoffman SC, the Director and Head of Projects at The Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa (IFAISA), wrote an opinion piece for Daily Maverick titled; The Justice John Hlophe Inquiry Papers: Going nowhere fast. This piece was originally written by Hoffman in 2008 but in light of the ongoing allegations surrounding Judge […]
What role can judges play in preventing the Stalingrad legal strategy of criminals bent on manipulating the system? To begin let us define what we mean by a Stalingrad strategy: This is a strategy of wearing down the plaintiff by tenaciously fighting anything the plaintiff presents by whatever means possible and appealing every ruling favourable […]
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