Judge Ray Zondo knew at the age of 16 that he wanted to be a lawyer. Today he shows the same determination in
his role as judge president of the Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court
Glenda Daniels
Judge Ray Zondo’s office is in Johannesburg, he travels to courts around South Africa constantly, and his wife and four young children live in Durban.
The judge president of the Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court cannot hide his anxiety when he asks what his wife says about him.
Sthembile Zondo says: “What can I do? He is a workaholic. I have to accept that’s who he is, to keep the peace. I also have to ask him if he can be disturbed for a moment when he is working.”
Judge Zondo’s guffaw of relief at her acceptance of his lifestyle echoes across his elegant wood-panelled chambers. He had been anxious when he reluctantly parted with his wife’s cellphone number so that her views could be published.
Judge Zondo (41) admits that being married to a man who is constantly travelling and spends only weekends with his family cannot be easy. But he is determined to reduce the enormous backlog of unheard labour cases.
Next week he will be flying to the Labour Appeal Court in Port Elizabeth with fellow judges Dennis Davis and Ben du Plessis to hear the appeal against the decision by the Labour Court not to reinstate workers in the controversial Volkswagen case.
The Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court hearings are taking place within two months of the contentious Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) decision to reinstate workers after they went on an illegal strike.
The workers had to wait almost a year before the CCMA made its arbitration ruling.
Zondo’s colleagues say he is a workaholic. His secretary says he works weekends and during court recesses, too. But friends say he is a party animal and is the life and soul of parties, despite the fact that he doesn’t drink or smoke.
Judge Zondo says: “No, I’m no party animal. I don’t go to parties. I love entertaining in my home.”
The highlight of the judge president’s life was in the early 1990s. He was a labour lawyer in a small office and there was a massive strike and a lockout involving members of the South African Catering, Commercial and Allied Workers’ Union. Judge Zondo decided to represent the workers himself, without the assistance of senior counsel.
His friends thought he was insane he was up against Malcolm Wallis, SC, who was representing the company and was regarded as one of the best labour lawyers in the country.
When Judge Zondo won the case, he couldn’t sleep that night. His friends say he couldn’t stop talking about the case.
Judge Zondo comes from poverty-stricken, rural beginnings. Born in Ixopo, KwaZulu-Natal, he was one of nine children of a miner father, who was based in Johannesburg, and a shop assistant mother.
“Last year I went back to Ixopo to give some money to a woman who’d given me three white shirts for school when my mother could not afford to buy them. I remember days when there was no food and one particular evening when we had no supper, the roof of our house collapsed in a storm, too, and it was winter,” he recalls.
Judge Zondo knew he wanted to be a lawyer when he was 16 years old. He says he persevered with his goal and received bursaries throughout his schooling and his studies at the University of Zululand and University of Natal.
At one point he wrote about his determination to become a lawyer in a letter to a newspaper and one of its readers helped him financially.
Charm must have helped, too. Judge Chris Nicolson of Durban says: “He has a great sense of humour, is not at all abrasive and he works incredibly hard. I’ve known him for a long time. When I recruited him to the Legal Resources Centre more than 10 years ago, I
was so impressed I gave him the job within 10 minutes of the interview.”
Judge Johan Conradie relates an incident when Judge Zondo lost his air ticket during an overseas trip. “His sense of humour came through. We ran around chasing after security as the ticket was locked in his hotel room. But he was cheerful and jolly throughout it. He kept up the good spirits.”
Good spiritedness will probably see Judge Zondo through his massive task. He is worried about the lack of race and gender transformation of the Bench. There are only two black labour judges, including himself.
“There has to be more representivity, but there is too small a pool of black judges and lawyers to bring on to the Bench,” he explains. He is trying out a new programme, giving some lawyers a chance to build experience through short sittings on the Bench.
The problem of judge’s salaries prevents successful young black advocates from taking up positions on the Bench.
In response to an Eastern Cape judge who recently said he wanted to leave the Bench because he could not live on his salary of R20 000 (after deductions) a month, Zondo says: “If one black judge leaves the Bench it sets transformation back by several years.”
A lack of adequate funding from the Ministry of Justice is also confounding the judge president. The budget to the Labour Court has been slashed and this has seriously affected the quality of libraries the court has. Zondo is now grateful and reliant on donations of books.
“Forum shopping” has to stop, he says. This means that there are too many legal loopholes that allow people to try different courts before going to the appropriate one first.
“Employment matters should be dealt with by the institutions that have been set up for them. Instead, some members of the public will get advice that they could try out the High Court first or some other place to see if they could do better.”
Judge Zondo is a firm believer in the independence of the judiciary. In two weeks he will be meeting the head of the Constitutional Court, Judge Arthur Chaskalson, as well as other judge presidents to discuss the matter.
“Zimbabwe is of great concern. The rule of law and the independence of the judiciary has to be respected,” he says.