In conducting its survey, the council also made use of a comparable European study of the legitimacy of European courts.
The study provides us with some indication of the road we have travelled towards a legal system that is legitimate across the diversity of this country.
Half of the sample believed the criminal courts were doing a good job, a figure that puts South Africa above many European states in terms of confidence in the courts. We rank with Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Belgium and, yes, even Britain!
Drilling down, the study finds that between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s public confidence in the courts increased. Thereafter, the upward trend petered out, so that by 2012 only 50% of South Africans had confidence in the system, compared with 57% in 2009.
Tested for the roots of such views, respondents referred to the importance of technical competence and procedural fairness. They believed our courts were prone to error.
On a score line of 0 to 10, with 10 being "always wrong", our courts scored 5.7, placing them in a league with Spain, Ukraine and Slovakia.
Procedural fairness was scored at 5.8, with 10 being perfectly fair; significantly, the poorer segment of the sample was less convinced. Even more disturbing, 44% believed black accused were more likely to be convicted, whereas only 42% considered the courts to be impartial.
That conclusion must be read with the further finding that 51% believed poor people were more likely to be found guilty, as opposed to 38% who believed that impartiality prevailed. The figure of 51% contains an over-representation not only of poor people but also of young people.
Although the study only dealt with the criminal courts, and thus has little relevance to the Constitutional Court and even the Supreme Court of Appeal, it does cause for careful consideration. If the youth and socially disadvantaged question the legitimacy of the court system, there could be disturbing consequences for the future of constitutional democracy, as protected and advanced by the courts.
The quick response to these results will be to argue in favour of more aggressive demographic transformation of the judiciary, to ensure an institution that better understands the plight of the poor. But the major exposure the public, and hence the survey's respondents, has to the criminal courts is through the magistrate's courts, so the problem
may require more complex analysis.
Whereas the high courts' judges are now more than 50% black, that figure is significantly higher in the lower courts. Racial composition alone may not be a sufficient reason for the perceptions reported.
That is not to suggest that demography is not important, but rather to think about the challenge of transforming the model of the "judicial officer" that was inherited from apartheid. This requires careful debate.
Another question that flows from this study is to do with the way public perceptions of the courts peaked in the middle of the first decade of the 21st century but have declined somewhat. Is it possible that the attacks launched by disgruntled politicians on the judiciary, including the choice epithet of "counter-revolutionary", has affected public perceptions?
As an editorial in this newspaper ("Gentle guarantor of SA's freedom", July 26) reminded us, even as distinguished a judicial figure as the late chief justice Pius Langa was not immune to vicious attacks on his role and that of the Constitutional Court, which he led with such distinction. These attacks were infrequent during the early part of the 2000s, so an inference may be drawn about the declining legitimacy of the courts and its relationship with the verbal barrage against judges that began around the time of the first attempts to prosecute Jacob Zuma for corruption and fraud.
This raises the challenge of the way forward. Attacks on the judicial leadership of this country – from different quarters – continue.
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, but criticism of particular judges and the judicial institution should aim to meet the challenges posed by the survey: to increase the legitimacy of the courts by the efficient delivery of justice
by adequately resourced courts, staffed by technically competent judges who ensure meticulous fairness, as well as the kind of understanding, even under pressure, that accords equal dignity to all who require the services of a court. Personal attacks and point scoring simply will not get us to our desired destination.