Mandisa Maya recommended as new Chief Justice

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) will recommend that President Cyril Ramaphosa appoint President of the Supreme Court of Appeal, Judge Mandisa Maya, as South Africa’s new Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court.

This after the commission spent five days interviewing candidates and holding deliberations on who should be the next head of the judiciary.

The four candidates were Maya; Constitutional Court Justice, Mbuyiseli Madlanga; Judge President of the Gauteng Division of the High Court Justice, Dunston Mlambo, and current Acting Chief Justice, Raymond Zondo.

If recommended by the President, Maya will make history as South Africa’s first black African female to head up the highest court in the land and the judiciary.

Commission spokesperson, Advocate Dali Mpofu SC, said the procedure was a challenging one, brought on by the uniqueness of the process.

“What made our task difficult was exactly that the candidates were all of a high quality and the uniqueness of the process which was also unprecedented in so far as for the first time ever, the President nominated more than one candidate to be interviewed by the JSC,” Mpofu said.

The recommendation is a culmination of a process that kicked off in September last year when in an unprecedented step, President Cyril Ramaphosa invited public nominations for the position.

A panel convened to evaluate the nominations then recommended at least eight names to the President for consideration.

From those eight, the President then chose four candidates for consideration to the JSC and political parties.

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According to the commission’s spokesperson, Doris Tshepe, the process will now be handed back to President Ramaphosa for a final decision.

“From the JSC’s side, we will be writing a letter to the President, informing him of our recommendation to him. Then the President will if he hasn’t done that already, be consulting the leaders of the political parties represented in the National Assembly. Then he will make his decision as required by the Constitution,” she said.