The Judicial Service Commission’s recommendations to fill the three vacant positions in the Makhanda and Mthatha high courts have been announced.
This follows on the commission’s interviews with nine candidates on Thursday.
The South African Judiciary posted on X on Thursday evening that the commission would be advising President Cyril Ramaphosa to appoint three individuals, namely Adv Sally Ann Collett, Nolubabalo Cengani-Mbakaza and Prof Nomthandazo Ntlama-Makhanya.
All three women have served as acting judges of the high court, but they have come from very different backgrounds.
An advocate in private practice for more than 40 years, Collett served as a legal officer for the Independent Electoral Commission during the 1994 democratic elections. She also represented clients before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
She appeared to impress the commission with her experience, her ideas for improving court work flow and her emphasis on introducing more ubuntu, or humanity, into proceedings.
Cengani-Mbakaza went straight from acquiring her law degree to working as a prosecutor and state advocate, cutting her teeth on criminal litigation and thereafter rising through the magistracy.
According to Judges Matter, one of her prominent cases was Mbalane v Mbalane and Others, involving a family dispute over the attempted exhumation of a child’s body.
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Prominent Fort Hare public law Ntlama-Makhanya comes from a background as an academic and has never practised as an attorney or an advocate.
However, she seemed to impress the commission with her knowledge of the law and her ability to apply this practically in her rulings as an acting high court judge.
She spoke forcefully during her interview on Thursday about her judgment in the 2023 Madibeng municipality land occupation case.
She explained that while the court could not support the illegal seizure of land, which was in this case designated for low-cost housing, the state had to provide a decent emergency alternative for the destitute land claimants.
The Herald
Guy Rogers
www.businessday.co.za
