There is never a dull political day in South Africa. President Jacob Zuma's announcement yesterday that Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng is his choice as the next chief justice is unsurprising but disappointing.

Mogoeng, who will be chief justice for the next 10 years, barring untimely death, is certainly not the best person for the job. He has a conservative judicial outlook, is less intellectually rigorous than many of his peers, and has little experience on the constitutional bench, which, though not compulsory, is surely deeply desirable.

My first public encounter with Mogoeng was at Kliptown two years ago when he was being interviewed by the Judicial Service Commission for one of four vacancies on the Constitutional Court bench. He was unable to articulate a judicial philosophy and his oratorical engagement with the commission - he is an ordained pastor - had everyone in awkward stitches. When asked, for example, why he wanted to be a Constitutional Court judge, he enthusiastically, if unhelpfully, responded that the appointment would give him a chance to "pour out [his] passion".

When pressed by another member of the commission about his limited academic or judicial output on constitutional matters, he bemoaned the fact that most cases he had been exposed to did not give rise to constitutional analysis.

As a sweetener, we were told that he had put together course packs on constitutional law.

It is unclear whether these facts should count in someone's favour as possible chief justice of the Constitutional Court a mere two years later.

Mogoeng was, of all the candidates I saw interviewed then, evidently the weakest, and his subsequent selection to the Constitutional Court surprised many.

What do we know about Mogoeng the jurist?

After practising for seven years as an advocate in the 1990s, he was appointed a judge of the North West High Court in June 1997. He was appointed a judge of the Labour Appeal Court in April 2000. In October 2002, he became Judge President of the North West High Court. He was appointed to the Constitutional Court by Zuma in 2009.

Mogoeng had made about 10 reported judgments before joining the Constitutional Court. Given that he had been a judicial officer for more than 10 years, this is an important intellectual indictment. It points to either a lack of industriousness or judicial work of a standard not deemed sufficiently noteworthy for editors of law reports to record for posterity. By contrast, more respected jurists, such as some of his Constitutional Court colleagues, have literally hundreds of reported judgments.

As a Constitutional Court judge, Mogoeng has penned four majority judgments, but these have dealt with relatively straightforward constitutional questions. These included confirmation of an order of invalidity by a lower court, in Malachi v Cape Dance Academy International, and, in another case involving the same parties, his discharging of a provisional cost order.

But Mogoeng would certainly have endeared himself to the government in Glenister v President of the Republic of South Africa and Others. This is the case in which the majority found that the Hawks are inadequately safeguarded against political influence.

Mogoeng agreed with the minority judgment of Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, who argued that the Hawks were fit for purpose. He was, politically speaking, on the right side of that disagreement between the judges of the Constitutional Court.

But perhaps Mogoeng's weakest moment on the bench thus far was his solitary dissent in the case of Le Roux vs Dey. Mogoeng was the only judge on the bench who held that one could successfully sue for defamation on the ground that someone had depicted you as a homosexual.

Whether his viewpoint is sound is not the issue. What was shocking is that he refused to give reasons for his dissent.

First, it is unacceptable for a judge to withhold his reasons for a finding. Second, the content on which he dissented - whether being depicted as gay can count as defamation - raises suspicions that he might be homophobic. His personal convictions as an ordained pastor, one suspects, were probably the basis of his dissent, rather than a relentless commitment to the letter and spirit of the court's rich gay rights jurisprudence.

In other cases, such as McBride vs The Citizen, Mogoeng simply lapsed into emotive rhetoric as a substitute for rigorous articulation of the basis of a partial dissent.

Last, any observer of the courts will know that the number and quality of questions that judges ask of lawyers arguing before them gives some indication of judicial capability.

Justice Dikgang Moseneke, for example, is a beautiful mind to behold when he interrogates the evidence and logic of lawyers before him. He asks more than 10 questions in each hearing.

Mogoeng, by contrast, has asked no more than 10 questions during the past 12 months.

A generous attitude might be to ascribe to him the character of the "strong silent type". In truth, as any court lawyer knows, this is a missed opportunity to engage written heads of arguments in detail. It defeats the very point of oral argument before the court. A chief justice ought to lead upfront.

So what does all this mean for the Constitutional Court?

Fortunately, not very much. The court, as an institution, will remain progressive in its collective jurisprudential outlook. Each member, including the chief justice, has only one vote. They are intellectual equals who have to persuade each other. So, though Mogoeng is not the best person for the job - Deputy Chief Justice Moseneke is, as everyone knows - we can still sleep peacefully at night, secure in the knowledge that the Constitutional Court will survive Mogoeng's colourful character.

• McKaiser is a political analyst. He will deliver the Ruth First Memorial Lecture at the Wits Great Hall at 6pm today. See ruthfirstlecture@gmail.com