Government largely complies with court orders – CJ

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng insists that the government is largely complying with court orders. His office is quoted in Rapport as saying the respective Judge Presidents would have brought it to his his attention if they felt like there was a tendency by government to disobey court orders. If that happened, he would take the matter up with the executive. The report notes that Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo was not the first judge to raise concerns about the issue (in the al-Bashir case) of court orders being ignored. Judge Bill Prinsloo, of the same division, said in a less high-profile judgment as far back as September 2009 that ‘there is a seemingly endemic tendency’ by government officials to ignore court orders. Two months after that, acting Judge Roelof du Plessis warned in another judgment in that division that the ‘erosion’ of the supremacy of the law that he was seeing could be the start of a ‘constitutional crisis’. Mogoeng's office explained that the Chief Justice had not denied government officials were disregarding court orders. ‘He was asked about the apparent disregard of the al-Bashir judgment by the government, not by one or other relatively junior officials in a government department,’ spokesperson Nathi Mncube said. He added that Mogoeng would soon announce the judiciary’s plans and position on the increasing tension between the judiciary and other arms of the state.