Tougher test for judge posts

Prospective judges are to face greater scrutiny before they are interviewed for positions in courts.

Following the recent outcry over judgments made by Mogoeng Mogoeng before he became Chief Justice, law bodies are intensifying their submissions to the Judicial Service Commission on individuals nominated for or seeking elevation to higher courts.

Bar councils across South Africa have been asked to tighten their written submissions to the JSC on anyone nominated to the High Courts, the Supreme Court of Appeal, Electoral Court, Labour Court, Competition Appeal Court or the Constitutional Court.

According to a notice the Johannesburg Bar Council sent members last month, the General Council of the Bar of South Africa has requested bar councils to comment more vigorously on candidates.

Submissions are to be extensive and comprise written comments, thorough research of a candidate's judgments, whether any of these judgments was taken on appeal and the outcome thereof; and if any of the judgments was ground-breaking.

The fine-tuning of submissions to the JSC follows the fierce public outcry about controversial judgments by Justice Mogoeng.

These resurfaced when President Jacob Zuma announced Justice Mogoeng's nomination as successor to Sandile Ngcobo as head of the Constitutional Court.

They included judgments deemed unsympathetic to women and to homosexuals.

Johannesburg Bar Council vice-chairman Craig Watt-Pringle SC has asked its members to provide comment on candidates, "preferably paying attention to the criteria applied by the JSC".

Watt-Pringle said that, though the Johannesburg Bar submitted comments only on candidates short-listed for the Johannesburg and Pretoria High Courts and the general application courts, it did make submissions for other provinces if it felt "very strongly" about a particular candidate.

Cape Bar Council chairman Alasdair Sholto-Douglas SC said it had submitted fairly thorough reports on judicial candidates, sometimes even eight pages long.

"The interview process [by the JSC] should be the cherry on the top, the real work is in the investigations that should be done beforehand," said Sholto-Douglas.

At a special sitting on September 10, the JSC resolved - after lengthy debate and review of the guidelines on interviewing prospective judges - to publish the criteria used when considering judges for appointments. These include if the applicant is appropriately qualified, if their appointment will reflect the racial and gender composition of South Africa and whether they have integrity, energy and motivation.

The next round of JSC interviews will be conducted in Cape Town in October.