State admits: System of appointing magistrates ‘is flawed’

De Lange told MPs this week that the procedure bordered on the illegal, says a report in The Mercury. DA MP Jacobus le Roux had asked whether the growing number of magistrates getting into ‘trouble’ had anything to do with the department’s appointment procedure. Said De Lange: ‘I do think there are problems with our appointing mechanisms. I think it is quite illegal, in a way. It’s a very flawed system that has a lot of potential for the wrong people to go through. If we see what is happening now, it is that a lot of wrong people are getting through.’ De Lange said that provincial committees nominate potential candidates to the Magistrates’ Commission, which then makes appointments. The problem with this was that most the provincial committee members were not even part of the commission and this had resulted in unsuitable people being appointed as magistrates. Department spokesperson Zolile Nqayi said that the system could be open to abuse. Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla told the National Council of Provinces select committee on justice and constitutional affairs that plans were under way to build a judicial training institute that would train judges and magistrates. The institute, said De Lange, would deal with some of these problems, and justice officials would be able to screen which people were suitable to become magistrates. Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)

The debate around court language policy continues to bubble in the media – and Mabandla has recognised it needs to be changed. She is quoted in a Daily News report as saying the government has to take decisive action about a policy that still has English and Afrikaans as the languages of record. Mabandla was responding to ANC MP Abram Moseki, who had asked her what her department was doing about language barriers in courts where witnesses could not express themselves in their own languages. ‘It\'s a very difficult matter but we need to take decisive action around that,’ Mabandla said, adding the issue would also be discussed at a magistrates\' conference in August. Full Daily News report