Ramaphosa appoints Mandisa Maya as new deputy chief justice

Judge Mandisa Maya has been appointed as SA’s new deputy chief justice.

President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed the president of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) to the position with effect from September 1.

Maya will replace current chief justice Raymond Zondo, who took up the job in April after Mogoeng Mogoeng’s departure.

“Justice Maya will contribute to the ongoing transformation process of the judiciary,” said Ramaphosa. “Her ascendancy to the apex court will serve as a beacon of hope for scores of young women and make them believe that SA is a country of possibilities, regardless of gender, social or economic circumstances.”

Maya was the first woman to hold the positions of deputy president and president of the SCA and “brings more than two decades of a distinguished career as a judicial officer”, said the presidency.

Legal monitoring site Judges Matter previously said: “Justice Maya has a decent body of work as a judge, which speaks to the quality of intellectual leadership.

“She notes 200 judgments published in the official law reports, with at least two of them written in isiXhosa — a feat no other judge has so far achieved ... In both judgments, Maya deployed rigorous analysis of both the factual matrix and the complex legal principles, and in a language accessible to a wider audience.”

Maya was among four candidates who took part in a gruelling round of interviews for chief justice in February.

After Zondo’s appointment, she expressed her “full confidence in justice Zondo as a leader in the judiciary and has no doubt that the contribution he will continue to make in our jurisprudence and administration of justice will strengthen and move the South African judiciary forward”.

Zondo in turn said of Maya: “I have absolutely no doubt she is going to make a very big contribution.”

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