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 […]
On Thursday, 6 April 2017, the Judicial Service Commission interviewed four candidates for the position of Judge President of the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court. The candidates were Judge M Makaula, Judge Z M Nhlangulela, Judge J E Smith, and Judge D Van Zyl. The current Judge President of the Eastern Cape, Themba […]
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 […]
As one of the more challenging individuals making up the 23 JSC members, Julius Malema seldom fails to disappoint the spectators at the JSC interviews with his knack for putting candidates in the hot seat. While other JSC commissioners will stick to more conventional lines of questioning, asking about a candidate’s work experience and their […]
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 […]
In a press statement last week, The Presidency announced that President Zuma had decided to replace three members of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). Namely, Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza SC, Advocate Ismael Semenya SC and Ms Andiswa Ndoni. This move has been described by The Sunday Times as ‘a new assault on the judiciary’. The Sunday […]
In March 2016 the SCA confirmed a ruling by the North Gauteng High Court that the government had acted unlawfully in failing to arrest the Sudanese president, Omar al–Bashir, when he visited South Africa in June 2015. All indications were that the South African government had not complied with a Pretoria High Court order granted […]
