Mungo Soggot
THE latest batch of temporary judges appointed to the Transvaal Bench includes two leading lights from the Black Lawyers Association, one of whom has seven years’ experience at the Bar.
Johannesburg advocates say the appointment of Vincent Maleka and Ismail Semenya, who started at the Bar in 1989 and 1986 respectively, confirmed that experience was no longer the main criterion used to determine the make-up of the Bench, as the government strives to transform the predominantly white, male institution.
The division’s acting judges are selected by Frikkie Eloff, who is viewed as a politically astute judge-president anxious to help transform the Bench. In the past only senior counsel were appointed acting judges, which usually meant a career of at least 20 years at the Bar.
The other appointments are Nazir Cassim, a labour law specialist who has practised for 11 years, and Jenny Woodward, who began her career in 1983. The only senior counsel is Wim Trengove, one of the country’s most eminent advocates who handles most of the African National Congress’s important briefs.
The appointment of advocates with relatively little experience has privately unnerved both black and white practitioners, although none would comment publicly. Some said they would decline an invitation to become an acting judge without at least 10 years behind them.
But chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Black Lawyers Association, George Maluleke, said the appointments were a “tremendous step in the right direction. Eloff has to be congratulated …”
He said it was “a fallacy that experience is the only criterion” and that a candidate’s “potential” was equally important. In other countries lawyers fresh from university made excellent judges, he said.
Maluleke said it was understandable that some in the profession would complain about the appointments. “Everyone wants to protect their turf … but they are being shortsighted and too self-centred.”
Maluleke said the government and the profession needed a co-ordinated effort to train new judges. He also called for a re- evaluation of the policy of appointing judges for life – a policy which perpetuated the old order.
He said the Judicial Services Commission, which handles the appointment of permanent judges, was treading a “good path” in its efforts to transform the Bench.
Hugh Corder, professor of Public Law at the University of Cape Town, said the amount of experience required for judicial office depended entirely on the individual.
He said Professor Dennis Davis, currently an acting judge in Cape Town, had probably had less than 10 years’ experience at the Bar but had been an excellent choice. “On the other hand, a senior advocate who has conducted a narrowly circumscribed practice at the Bar for 20 years may be flummoxed by a range of cases once he is on the Bench.”
But the idea that a graduate straight out of university could be a successful judge in the current South African legal system was “without foundation”, he said.
* President Nelson Mandela on Wednesday conferred the Order for Meritorious Service (Gold) on outgoing Chief Justice Michael Corbett at a Cape Town banquet held in his honour. Sapa reported that Mandela hailed Corbett, who will be succeeded by Deputy Constitutional Court President Ismail Mahomed, as a champion of truth and an excellent scholar.
He said he became better acquainted with Corbett, who has been chief justice since 1989, in the run-up to his inauguration as president and had since noted his valuable contribution to the framing of the interim constitution and the new Constitution, as well as his role as chairman of the Judicial Service Commission.
Referring to the many judges present, Mandela joked he was never happy in the presence of judges as the “prospect of spending another 27 years on some island is frightening”.