The Judicial Service Commission has delayed interviews for three vacancies on the Western Cape Bench while it waits to hear whether it can appeal a high court judgment declaring its last interview proceedings invalid.
The interviews were scheduled for Tuesday, but were delayed at the last minute.
"The JSC decided to delay the interview until Wednesday," commission spokesman CP Fourie said.
The Western Cape High Court has ruled in favour of the Cape Bar Council and the Centre for Constitutional Rights in the dispute with the JSC over the process used to interview candidate judges. The high court questioned some of the JSC procedures and ordered it to reconsider Western Cape applicants interviewed in April.
The JSC recommended that only one of the three existing judicial vacancies be filled for the Western Cape bench, despite a vast backlog.
Seven candidates had been short-listed for the positions, including pre-eminent senior counsel Owen Rogers and 28 applicants.
The ruling requires the commission to re-interview the unsuccessful candidates, if they so wish.
Business Day reported on Tuesday that three candidates who were snubbed in April had reapplied. They are attorneys Stephen Koen and Judith Cloete and senior advocate Owen Rogers.
During the litigation, the JSC accused the Cape Bar Council of not having supported a single black candidate since 1994. The council denied this and gave a number of examples of black candidates it had supported over the years.
Fourie said the interviews were scheduled to start in Cape Town on Wednesday morning.
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