‘Fearless and independent’ justice system saluted

South Africa’s courts have been described as ‘battlegrounds for contesting political forces’. Legalbrief reports that State of the Judiciary in Malawi, Namibia and South Africa, which was released last week, is based on data from Afrobarometer, a non-partisan, pan-African research institution. It conducts public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, the economy and society in more than 30 countries. Using eight Afrobarometer surveys, Democratic Governance Rights Unit (DGRU) researchers tracked trends of public trust in courts in Malawi, Namibia and SA and compared these with findings from other countries on the continent.

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With regards to trust in the courts out of 34 countries, Tanzania rated first with 90%, followed by Malawi at 68%. SA ranks 23rd with a 43% trust factor. Judges Matters notes that the report concludes with an examination of the major challenges judges face in their courts, and in the performance of their duties. Judges in Malawi cite insufficient court personnel, high caseloads, poor building infrastructure, and budget limitations. For Namibian judges, challenges include not having adequate access to tools of the trade (laptops, law reports, electronic services); a shortage of judges in the face of increasing workloads; limited funding for legal aid, resulting in people representing themselves; and inadequate training by other stakeholders in the justice system, including the police. Respondent judges felt that police should be trained in all aspects of the law so that an accused’s rights are protected from the outset.

The authors of the report have hailed SA’s Constitutional Court for standing firm in the face of former President Jacob Zuma’s three-pronged onslaught last year which shook the nation to its core.  ‘This is indicative of a fearless and independent judiciary,’ notes the just-published scoping study and report. The study, funded by the Norwegian Embassy, was conducted by DGRU, an applied research unit based at the Department of Public Law at the University of Cape Town. DGRU collaborators were the Institute of Public Opinion and Research (Malawi), Survey Warehouse (Namibia) and Citizen Surveys (SA).

Full Judges Matter report

The authors say the study was initiated with the understanding ‘that the wellbeing of the judiciary is essential to the functioning of a modern state and the wellbeing of its citizens’. It notes that since the dawn of the constitutional era and particularly over the past 10 years, ‘judges in South Africa have been required to adjudicate disputes that touch on issues central to the political life of the nation’. In so doing, the judiciary had to decide on controversies that, ‘in many other jurisdictions, would be expected to be resolved in the political domain’. The Daily Maverick reports that it reveals that figures from the judiciary’s annual report for the 2020-2021 financial year indicated that the Constitutional Court ‘is struggling under its increased caseload, with a finalisation rate of only 61% compared to the Supreme Court of Appeal's finalisation rate of 81%.

During Zuma’s Presidency, ‘the courts were often described as the last line of defence for democracy’, the report noted. However, the DM notes that regardless of this, the judiciary had ‘lost a considerable amount of public support (23 percentage points between 2011 and 2012)’. With regards to Zuma’s legal battles last year, the study noted that it was clear that the Constitutiona Court had been aware of the ‘extreme political pressure’ it was under by emphasising that ‘it was in the public interest to send an unequivocal message that the court’s orders could not simply be ignored with impunity’.

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Full Daily Maverick report