Johannesburg- Mandisa Maya, the Judge President of the Supreme Court of Appeal, was recently recommended by the judicial services commission to become the next chief justice of the Constitutional Court.
If appointed, she’ll be the first woman chief justice since South Africa became a constitutional democracy following the end of apartheid in 1994. Maya was born in Tsolo, Eastern Cape, one of the country’s poorest areas that border the Indian Ocean, in 1964.
She has five younger siblings, three children and is married to Dabulamanzi Mlokoti. Her parents were teachers. Maya grew up in King William’s Town and Mthatha, where she matriculated from St John’s College in 1981.
The school is one of the oldest and the most highly rated in the country. It is closely associated with the Anglican Church of South Africa, having been established in 1879 by a Church of England missionary.
Maya’s early childhood was in the former Ciskei, which was one of the four Bantustans or homelands – together with Transkei, Bophuthatswana, and Venda – which were granted nominal independence by the apartheid government.
The homelands offered little opportunity for advancement. Nevertheless, growing up in a bantustan did not deter Maya from her commitment to justice and human rights, and saw her pursue studies in law. She holds a B.Proc from the University of Transkei, LLB (University of Natal), and LLM (Duke University, North Carolina in the US).
Maya is a Fulbright scholar, was a fellow of the Georgetown University law and gender programme, as well as a Commonwealth Foundation fellow and Jury’s out, judge for yourself Maya told the panel interviewing her she’s a good woman judge a Duke Law School International alumnus.
She began her legal career as an attorney’s clerk in a professional firm in Mthatha and went on to become a court interpreter and prosecutor of the magistrate’s court, also in Mthatha. This was followed by the job of assistant state law adviser before she did her pupillage at the Johannesburg Bar.
She subsequently became a practising advocate associated with the Transkei Society of Advocates. She also had a stint as a law lecturer at the University of Transkei. Maya also has a footprint in other jurisdictions – notably Lesotho, Namibia and the US.
In Washington DC, she was policy counsel and lobbyist intern at the Women’s Legal Defense Fund. She has also acted as a judge in the Supreme Court of Namibia and the Appeal Court of Lesotho. In 2016, Maya became the first woman President of South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal.
The Supreme Court of Appeal is the country’s second-highest court after the Constitutional Court. Her leadership qualities have been recognised in various other ways too. For example, she was elected president of the South African chapter of the International Association of Women Judges.
Her years on the bench, including the current position, have been characterised by the championing of children and women’s rights, the poor and many other marginalised groups.
In 2012, she received the South African Women Lawyers Icon award for her role in empowering and mentoring women. She is one of the few judges in South Africa with a strong commitment to changing the approach of judges in adjudicating gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide cases.
She told a summit on GBV and femicide in 2018: “… while there has been a marked ideological shift in the ways judges adjudicate matters relating to gender-based violence and femicide in recent times, including the abolition of cautionary rule in respect of sexual offences, and the conduct of many judicial officers can be commended, the fate of these victims should not be left to the off-chance that the individual judges hearing their cases will be attuned to the sensitivities.
There should be a formalisation and standardisation of these norms so that it is incumbent on the courts to pay particular attention to the treatment of victims in these cases.”
She has also been considered a jurisprudential thought leader has given that some of her judgments have, directly and indirectly, influenced nation-building.
For instance, in the 2020 AfriForum NPC v Chairperson of the Council of the University of South Africa and Others case, she ruled that the removal of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at the University of South Africa was unlawful and unconstitutional.
The decision was later confirmed by the Constitutional Court. Her dissenting minority judgment in Minister of Safety and Security v F in 2011 greatly influenced the decision of the Constitutional Court.
The court reversed the Supreme Court of Appeal’s majority decision and confirmed her minority decision. The matter before the Supreme Court of Appeal was about a claim for damages arising from the rape of a woman by an off-duty policeman.
The majority of the court held that the minister of safety and security was not vicariously liable because the policeman committed the rape when he was off duty. Maya penned a dissenting judgment in which she argued that members of the police service were entrusted with the constitutional role and the responsibility to conduct themselves properly to foster the community’s trust.
And that this could not be suspended because a member was off-duty. Is South Africa ready for a woman chief justice? She responded: “I’m not here because I’m a woman, I’m a worthy judge … I’m just a good woman judge.”
• Sibanda is executive dean and professor at the University of Limpopo’s faculty of management and law. This article first appeared on the Conversation.
By Omphemetse Sibanda
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