Aspirant judges in the dock

"Sit back," said Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo. "Relax and enjoy the interview." So began the process to appoint the country's aspirant judges at this week's Judicial Service Commission (JSC) interviews in Cape Town.

Candidates were faced down by a "full bench", including Supreme Court of Appeal president Lex Mpati, Transvaal provincial division Judge President Bernard Ngoepe, minister of justice Jeff Radebe, legal practit ioners and academics.

During the interviews on Friday, legal commentators were still trying to get to grips with the news that Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett SC, one of four candidates for three vacancies in the Western Cape, had apparently been passed over by the JSC.

While their recommendations have not yet been officially released, Business Day reported that Gauntlett, arguably one of the country's finest legal minds, had lost out to Pat Gamble SC, Elize Steyn SC and Chantel Fortuin, who will be recommended to President Jacob Zuma for the judiciary.

Gauntlett had in the past clashed with Cape Judge President John Hlophe.

Advocate Thys Snyman applied for one of six vacancies in Gauteng.

For the past 10 months he has been an acting judge in the High Court in Limpopo. During that time, it emerged, he had not been able to learn an indigenous language - this in response to a question by Gauteng premier Nomvula Mokonyane. She also asked him about any "community-based" work he had done in Thohoyandou.

He replied that he had, from time to time, discussed Jesus with court orderlies, had been invited to weddings and, once, had been asked to address a meeting at the University of Venda - an opportunity he declined, as it was at night and unsafe to be on the roads, especially for white people.

Commissioners were openly scornful ofhis admission.

Professor Kobus van Rooyen, another applicant for a Gauteng vacancy, apologised for being a member of the Afrikaner Broederbond. Van Rooyen, who presided over the Publications Appeal Board from 1980 to 1990, revealed he had passed the Richard Attenborough film Cry Freedom without cuts.

Labour Court candidate Jan Hiemstra SC fielded questions about his political affiliations. "I can say that I was never a supporter of apartheid in my life. And that cost me a lot of friends," he said.

He did, however, reveal that he once stood as a parliamentary candidate in Waterberg for the New Republic Party.

The only woman judge president applicant to appear before the JSC was Acting Judge President Monica Leeuw of the High Court in North West.

ANC MP Fatima Chohan expressed misgivings about the judiciary's apparent inability to empower women. Fellow ANC MP Bertha Peace Mabe was more direct: "I'm going to vote for you on the basis of affirmative action."