The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) this week interviewed candidates for judicial appointment, including nine for two vacancies on the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court. Below is a recap of some of our coverage.
Eastern Cape High Court judge Johannes Eksteen said he learnt “with some surprise” during the past few days of a toxic atmosphere at the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).
“I have enjoyed wonderful collegiality with all my colleagues in that court and I think it functions wonderfully well,” he said.
Eksteen is one of 11 candidates for five vacancies on the SCA, SA’s second-highest appeal court. He was interviewed by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) on Wednesday.
He was referring to recurring allegations over the years that there were senior judges at the SCA who mistreated junior and acting judges, and made working conditions difficult for them at the Bloemfontein court.
The situation became so bad that the court’s president, Mandisa Maya, during a JSC session in April 2017, publicly laid bare the toxicity. In interviews with other candidates over the years, the culprits, who were never named, became known as “the top six”. In later interviews, candidates said after interventions from Maya, things got a lot better.
In interviews on Monday, chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng asked Constitutional Court candidate Rammaka Mathopo about the “top six”, specifically why the issue had not received more public attention and why they had not been named and shamed.
Mathopo suggested it may be because they were “of a particular colour”, but declined to name them, saying those who complained had not named names, so he would be reporting what he heard.
Eksteen was asked if the reason he had not experienced the toxicity was because he was a white male, while those who had experienced it had been black and women, including the candidate ahead of him, Gauteng High Court judge Zeenat Carelse.
He said he was not able to express the feelings and observations of his colleagues, was not aware of it and had never seen a senior colleague abusing a junior. He said he could say that the atmosphere at the court was more relaxed in the past 18 months than it was in 2015.
About identifying them, he said he would have thought the identity of the six senior judges was “a matter of public record, so if the ‘top six’ refers to somebody else, I’m not aware of that”.
* Eksteen did not receive a recommendation.
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