Profile:
Cossie was unsuccessful in her October 2014 Judicial Service Commission interview to fill a vacancy at the High Court in Bhisho. She fumbled questions about the separation of powers doctrine, initially stating that in South Africa’s current political dispensation, parliament was “sovereign”, and then, attempting to self-correct, said the national legislature was “supreme”.
“I’ll update myself,”Cossie said, when commissioners expressed their incredulity at this most basic legal faux pas.
Sitting in the High Court in Cape Town, Cossie handed down four life sentences in convicting rapist Johannes de Jager in 2014. De Jager had killed two teenage sex-workers, Hiltina Alexander (18) in 2008 and Charmaine Mare (16), in 2013, dismembering the latter. Sex workers heralded the judgment as a legal exception to their experiences of the criminal justice system.
“There is justice in South Africa. This day proved we as sex workers also have rights… we are all human beings,” sex-worker Dudzile Dlamini told Independent Newspapers at the time, outside court.
Cossie has previously worked as a clerk, prosecutor and as an advocate since 1999. She obtained her B.Juris and LLB from the University of Fort Hare, which she returned to as a part-time lecturer from 2003-05. She has acted several times since 2007 on both the Western and Eastern Cape high court Benches.
Interview Synopsis:
Cossie crashed and burned in her interview – again. It made for grim viewing, excruciating for those assembled at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Sea Point in Cape Town.
During her last interview before the Judicial Service Commission in October 2014 — then she was applying for a vacancy at the High Court in Bhisho — she fumbled questions about the separation of powers doctrine, stating that in South Africa’s current political dispensation, parliament was “sovereign”, and then “supreme”. She also got questions about the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA) wrong.
“I’ll update myself,” Cossie had said at the time, when commissioners expressed their incredulity at some of her most basic legal faux pas. It was apparent that she had not, with commissioner Julius Malema asking her: “Did you prepare for this interview… I am worried that you are making the same mistakes?”
While she had figured out that the Constitution was supreme in SA this time around, Cossie still blundered through her interview. Asked by Malema to “give us a lecture on PAJA”, Cossie proceeded to cite Section 32 of the Constitution – which deals with the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
She was also hauled over the coals for associating herself, in her application form, with the Tongoane and Others v National Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs hearing at the Constitutional Court, when she had in fact not appeared there.
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng had gone out of his way to allay any nervous anxiety that Cossie had with a succession of early loosener questions, but that appeared to have made little difference since it soon became apparent that it was not anxiety affecting Cossie’s response, but, rather, a superficial knowledge of the law. She was unable to properly respond to questions which Mogoeng described as being “obvious to a lawyer”.
Sitting in the High Court in Cape Town, Cossie handed down four life sentences in convicting rapist Johannes de Jager in 2014. De Jager had killed two teenage sex-workers, Hiltina Alexander (18) in 2008 and Charmaine Mare (16), in 2013, dismembering the latter. Sex workers heralded the judgment as a legal exception to their experiences of the criminal justice system.
“There is justice in South Africa. This day proved we as sex workers also have rights… we are all human beings,” sex-worker Dudzile Dlamini told Independent Newspapers at the time, outside court.
Cossie has previously worked as a clerk, prosecutor and as an advocate since 1999. She obtained her B.Juris and LLB from the University of Fort Hare, which she returned to as a part-time lecturer from 2003-05. She has acted several times since 2007 on both the Western and Eastern Cape high court Benches.
