Women lead march to the Bench

Although, as expected, transformation has dominated this week’s JSC interviews of would-be judges, commissioners also dug deeply into the past of some candidates, eliciting sometimes embarrassing admissions, notes Legalbrief. However, according to a Business Day report, there were no surprises or upsets in choices for the Gauteng High Court, with four of the six new appointments announced yesterday being women. Gauteng’s new judges are Labour Court Judge Annali Basson, former director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies Raylene Keightley, specialist tax attorney Nelisa Mali, gender rights lawyer Lebogang Modiba, Magistrate Thifhelimbilu Mudau and Johannesburg senior counsel Willem van der Linde. The report notes interviews for most of the newly-recommended candidates went smoothly, in particular that of Modiba whose interview ended with Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke remarking that he would save his green Constitutional Court robe for her. ‘Very well done, young lady,’ he said. Justice Moseneke was chairing the JSC as Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng is abroad. Modiba’s voice wobbled when she described her impoverished childhood in Alexandra township and losing her mother at a young age. The cold winters and her phobia of rats meant she used to escape to the library, said the Harvard graduate. Candidates’ childhoods and upbringings have been a strong feature of this round of JSC interviews, with Moseneke talking of ‘the inarticulate premise’, which he described as ‘that part of a judge’s consciousness that comes with who she or he is’, and which ‘intrudes into decision making’. It applied to all judges.