Transformation remains JSC's hot topic

A Cape Times report notes Elizabeth Baartman, Ashley Binns-Ward SC, Chantal Fortuin, Pat Gamble SC, and Elias Matojane, all former acting judges with impressive CVs, were interviewed by Chief Justice Pius Langa, Justice Minister Jeff Radebe, fellow JSC commissioners and Acting Cape Judge President Jeanette Traverso. The report notes Binns-Ward was prosecuted in the then-Rhodesia in the late 1970s before becoming an attorney and later an advocate in Cape Town in the 1980s. He did pro bono work, and has been a commissioner in the Small Claims Court and chairman of the Cape Bar Council. The Cape Times says Traverso complimented him on his impressive career and role in easing tensions between the Bar and the Bench when Judge President John Hlophe was investigated. Binns-Ward did not believe transformation was intended to be a 'numbers game', but believed the constitutional ideal was to create a non-racist, non-sexist society where a person's values eclipsed what one looked like. Former ANC political activist and attorney Chantel Fortuin devoted her career to human rights, later as director of the Legal Resources Centre, notes the report. Criticism from a Cape Bar Council majority that she was incompetent and biased towards women was outweighed by her nomination and support from various organisations, she said. As a judge she would represent an 'under-represented' demographic group. Full Cape Times report (subscription needed)

More dissatisfaction with the NPA surfaced yesterday when a former employee of the prosecutions body nominated for the Western Cape Bench told the JSC the NPA had demanded she pay back her salary for the time she served as an acting judge. A Mail & Guardian Online report quotes Baartman as saying after a 'lengthy campaign', which included many letters to Chief Justice Pius Langa, her dispute with the NPA ended last week with a phone call from its acting head, Mokotedi Mpshe. He said they would withdraw the claim. According to a report in Die Burger, the IFP's Koos van der Merwe, went straight to the point on the issue of race and transformation when he asked Baartman whether she was 'white, coloured, black or Indian'. She answered that she was classified as coloured. Full Mail & Guardian Online report Full report in Die Burger

The NPA has defended itself against another claim heard at the JSC hearings. It has dismissed an allegation by an employee, who told the JSC that her seniors had prevented her from working as an acting judge. Nomonde Mngqibisi-Thusi, who works for the NPA's Asset Forfeiture Unit, told the JSC on Monday the threat was not stated explicitly, but she realised she had to choose. 'We wish to emphasise that at no stage during our engagements with her on these arrangements did we threaten her or exert any kind of pressure for her to choose between the NPA and the job of an acting judge,' the NPA said, according to a report on the News24 site. 'On the contrary, she was at all times encouraged to participate in the programme,' it said. Full report on the News24 site

An atheist would-be judge caused a stir at yesterday's hearings when he told members he left priesthood for the law because he concluded there is no God. According to a report on the News24 site, Senior Counsel Torquil Paterson told the JSC: 'I left the church for a variety of reasons, chief among them being that I realised God does not exist. I am an atheist'. Paterson, whose lengthy theological studies included a stint at Oxford University, explained he had eventually come to the conclusion that 'all language of God is meaningless'. Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, one of President Jacob Zuma's new appointees to the JSC, declared he was both an atheist and a Marxist. And according to a Beeld report, he asked Paterson whether transformation would be furthered by the appointment of yet more white judges. 'I don't think it is fair and right not to avail myself because I cannot make the Bench more black,' Paterson is quoted as saying. Ntsebeza attacked Paterson for not joining Advocates for Transformation. Paterson said he did not join as he believed the Bar Council was doing enough to promote black lawyers. Ntsebeza is the national the chair of the organisation. Full report on the News24 site Full Beeld report