Six concerns as JSC meets Mogoeng

The Cape Town International Convention centre was abuzz. And it was not just for the Homeowners Expo.

Read Justice Mogoeng response

The queue to attend the Judicial Service Commission's interview of chief justice-nominee Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng was almost as long.

It was good to see such an important institution getting such public attention. The gay and lesbian community was out in force, as was the local legal fraternity - along with "immigrants" from Johannesburg and Durban.

When asked by Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke - who had the tough job of chairing the meeting - to list the areas of concern upon which submissions had been made, Gauteng Judge President Bernard Ngoepe gave six: homophobia, gender sensitivity, ethics, experience, faith and jurisprudential philosophy.

One might think that this was an example of the sort of "participatory democracy" the constitution encourages - stakeholders offering views about the presidential nominee for top legal job.

But to the Minister of Justice, Jeff Radebe, it represented "a vicious onslaught".

Whether he was referring specifically to the submission of Cosatu that was being passed around the meeting hall - described by one member of the Johannesburg Bar as "utterly devastating" - is impossible to tell. What was abundantly clear, however, was Justice Mogoeng's appetite for the fight.

In many respects it was very effective, although it is a good job he is a candidate for judicial office and not foreign service; it was anything but diplomatic.

He read out a 47-page statement, responding point by point to the complaints that have been raised in the past three weeks.

When asked later about his vision for the next 10 years, he spoke strongly about his desire to sustain the reform process started by the previous chief justice, Justice Sandile Ngcobo, including separating the administration of the courts from the Ministry of Justice.

Whether this controversial nominee will be able to quickly win the respect of his colleagues on the Constitutional Court was a matter that appeared to concern one member of the commission - Advocate Mbuyiseli Madlanga SC - who asked whether his nomination was supported by other members of the court.

It was a question, perhaps, that contained the answer.

And, as the JSC broke for lunch, Justice Moseneke dropped his own laconically delivered bombshell: "The chief justice must be an intellectual leader ... after lunch you may wish to provide some answers in helping us to assess that."

Comparing himself on more than one occasion to Justice John Roberts, the current chief justice of the US Supreme Court, Justice Mogoeng had earlier raised some laughter by noting that he was six months older than President Barack Obama.

Whether he would have found Justice Moseneke's question as amusing as much of the audience did is very much in doubt.

• Calland is associate professor of public law at the University of Cape Town