News24 | JSC backs Maya as next Chief Justice, Zondi as next SCA Deputy President

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has resolved to support President Cyril Ramaphosa's selection of Deputy Chief Justice Mandisa Maya as South Africa's next Chief Justice. (Melinda Stuurman/Netwerk24)

• The JSC has backed Deputy Chief Justice Mandisa Maya as South Africa's next Chief Justice.
• She was previously chosen as the JSC's preferred candidate but lost out to Raymond Zondo.
• The JSC also recommended that Electoral Court chairperson Dumisani Zondi be appointed as Deputy President of the SCA.

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has resolved to support President Cyril Ramaphosa's selection of Deputy Chief Justice Mandisa Maya as South Africa's next Chief Justice.

Maya becomes the first woman to be appointed to the position, after becoming the first woman judge to serve as the President of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).

She was previously chosen as the JSC's preferred candidate for the Chief Justice vacancy, when the commission interviewed four senior judges for the position, but ultimately lost out to Raymond Zondo. 

As she mentioned in her first Chief Justice interview, Maya stressed on Tuesday that South Africa had experienced a number of upheavals and needed a judiciary that had the trust and belief of ordinary people.

She told the JSC that there was a lot of work to be done in ensuring that judicial administration functioned as effectively as possible.

Her vision for how this should be done was the result of consultations between many other judicial officers, with the independence of the judiciary central to that.

Maya acknowledged the "undue delays" in dealing with complaints levelled against judges "which may erode confidence in the judiciary". She also highlighted the "significant reduction over the years of judicial officers' salaries" and the failure to grant increases that were "at least in line with inflation".

She believed there needed to be increased focus on the safety and wellbeing of judicial officers.

Maya admitted that while she was initially buoyed by the experience of running the well-functioning SCA, she now acknowledged that there was "nothing attractive" about the Chief Justice position as "it is too hard". She said she had a far more seasoned perspective on that role now but believed she could do this job.

The JSC also recommended that Electoral Court chairperson Dumisani Zondi, whose ruling that Jacob Zuma was eligible to serve as an MP was overturned by the Constitutional Court on Monday, be appointed as Deputy President of the SCA.

Zondi served 10 years at the SCA and has been chairperson of the Electoral Court since November 2022.

Writing on behalf of the Electoral Court in a ruling that the Electoral Commission of SA successfully appealed, however, Zondi found that Zuma could not be said to have been "sentenced" according to section 47(1)(e) of the Constitution because he hadn't been able to appeal.

Justice Minister Ronald Lamola said on Tuesday that he agreed with Zondi that the remission of Zuma's sentence had no impact on the fact that he had been sentenced to 15 months for contempt.

"Remember here you are dealing with words and you have to ascertain the intention of legislature from the words used in the statute. So one party looking at the very same statute arises at a different conclusion. There's no guarantee that two people interpreting a statute will arrive at the same conclusion regarding the meaning of the statute because it's not a scientific approach, it's not a question of one plus one equals two," he said.