Mandisa Maya the sole interview candidate for Chief Justice post

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Deputy Chief Justice Mandisa Maya is expected to face the Judicial Service Commission on Tuesday, for an interview to become the next Chief Justice.

This comes as ahead of Justice Raymond Zondo’s retirement within the next few months, his 12-year non-renewable term as a Constitutional Court justice will end in August.

It’s not the first time that Justice Maya will be interviewed for the position of Chief Justice.

The former President of the Supreme Court of Appeal was one of four candidates who took the stand in February 2022.

During that interview, one of the questions she had to answer was around distrust in the judiciary in some instances.

“As I said, at the outset Commissioner Singh, while the institution does execute its constitutional mandate it’s not perfect. So, there are definitely things that we are not doing right, which all of us around this table know. So, we need to get as my children would say, just get our act together, as a judiciary, pull up our socks and clean up.”

After deliberations by the JSC, Maya was recommended to be appointed as Chief Justice. However, President Ramaphosa used his prerogative empowered by the Constitution to appoint Justice Zondo.

The President later nominated and appointed Maya as Zondo’s deputy. She is now the sole candidate to be interviewed to take over from the outgoing Chief Justice on the 1st of September.

Mbekezeli Benjamin from Judges Matter says, “Section 174 of the constitution gives the president a choice to select the chief justice. All previous presidents, from Mandela all the way to President Zuma, they all followed a typical process of selecting one candidate who’s then interviewed by the JSC and appointed by the president. It was only in 2022 that president  Ramaphosa decided to do something differently and asked for more nominations and he eventually nominated four candidates. He has unfortunately reverted to the old system. We were more in support of a more competitive system where there are multiple candidates vying for office, because all of them can showcase their skills and give us a reason why they should be chief justice. But ultimately it is in the hands of the president to select the chief justice.”

The judiciary watchdog has certain expectations from Maya, when she becomes the top Concourt judge.

“What we are looking for from Justice Maya is her plans for the judiciary because right now there are a number of burning issues that there is an expectation that she would address. The first one is on the governance ad administration of the judiciary. Last year, at the judges conference, the number one resolution was that there should be more urgent action to make  sure that the administration of the judiciary falls under judges themselves. The second burning issue in dealing with misconduct cases against judges. With the recent impeachment of two judges, there was really a lot of pressure to make sure that the system works efficiently and effectively as possible, because it has taken far too long to deal with complaints against judges and so, there is an expectation that she would move  quickly to fix that system. So, those are some of the two big big issues. So, what we expect from the  interview is the JSC would ask her about  what concrete plans does she have to deal with those.”

In terms of the Constitution, a Concourt Justice can serve a non-renewable term of twelve years or until the age of 70, whichever comes first. If appointed, 60-year-old Maya is expected to serve as a Concourt judge until March 2034 when she turns 70,  just six months before her 12-year non-renewable term would end.

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