Watching the Judicial Service Commission interviews can give you great insight into the nature of a candidate as well as the judiciary and the JSC itself. As not everyone can attend the JSC interviews and watch them live, we record all the interviews and share the videos on our YouTube channel for you to watch. […]
Throughout the year we write articles to share more information about the JSC, the judges’ interview process and the South African judicial system as a whole. Here is a list of our most read and most popular articles in 2017. 1. Malema’s questions for judges at the JSC interviews Posted: 14th March 2017 As one […]
Last week Judges Matter wrote an article, a bridge too far, which discussed the ideals for transformation on the bench. In response to our article Leon Dicker, a retired advocate and member of the Pretoria Bar, arbitrator, former magistrate, lecturer and trainer of magistrates at Justice College, wrote this comment; A well written article on […]
When you are in a court in which the judge, the prosecutor, the accused, and the defence lawyer all speak isiXhosa, why should the proceedings be English? There are several answers to this, which are put forward in judgments and at the Judicial Service Commission, but they ring increasingly hollow. The main argument is that […]
In a finely balanced decision handed down on Thursday, 22 June 2017, by a unanimous bench, the Constitutional Court has found that it cannot direct the Speaker of the National Assembly, “to make all the necessary arrangements to ensure that the motion of no confidence . . . is decided by secret ballot, including designating […]
Hoping to fill either the Judge President or Deputy Judge President position, Judge Cecile Williams would have a clear idea of the challenges facing the courts in this sparsely populated province where unemployment and the attendant problems of alcohol abuse, crime, gambling and violence are rife — she has served as a judge there since […]
Two candidates were interviewed by the JSC in April for the position of Deputy Judge President of the North West Division of the High Court. The first candidate to be interviewed was Judge Ronald Hendricks. In Pilane and Another v Pheto and Others, Hendricks had to rule on whether the respondents were members of the […]
Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, will release her report into the missing Bapo-Ba-Mogale mining royalties by the end of April. Mkhwebane visited the community near Brits in North West on 27 March 2017, regarding her probe into the so-called “D account”. The account, into which mining companies pay royalties for communities on whose ancestral land they […]
The South African court system is made up of one Constitutional Court, one Supreme Court of Appeal, 13 High Courts, one Labour Court, one Labour Appeal Court, one Competition Appeal Court, one Electoral Court and one Land Claims Court. The court and judiciary are overseen by the Chief Justice: currently Judge Mogoeng Mogoeng who has […]
It was reported on Sunday, 5 March 2017, that the ANC wants its deployees on the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to re-look at the “appointment criteria” used to decide who becomes a judge. In discussion documents, which have now been made public, the party is reported to want; “judges with a progressive philosophy and who […]
