SCA has moved on since division revelations – Maya

In a wide-ranging interview on the TimesLIVE site, Justice Mandisa Maya – the first female to occupy the post of President of the Supreme Court of Appeal – says ‘they have all moved on’ since she made startling revelations of the divisions which existed in the SCA among judges serving at the court. During her Judicial Service Commission interview for the post, she revealed how black judges occupied one side of the tearoom and white judges occupied the other. Judges have attended diversity seminars where integration was fostered and now the focus needed to be on other issues‚ such as gender representation in the court. ‘There are very few women judges in the court. I am itching and salivating to change that‚’ she said‚ adding that she would be on the lookout for competent female judges. She also expressed concern over the manual paper systems still used by the court‚ saying they had ‘one of the best libraries on the continent’ but still used the old library card system of locating books. The same system was used for storing court papers. ‘If this building burned down‚ everything would go with that fire‚’ she is quoted as saying. Asked to comment on the status of the country‚ Maya acknowledged there are serious challenges. ‘I can only speak for the judiciary. A huge amount of the work that comes into courts today concerns disputes that challenge decisions made by other arms of government. It is unfortunate but that is our reality and courts have their constitutional mandate to carry out and adjudicate those cases if they have the power to hear them. We have the laws to deal with these situations.’