Cape Town -
The appointment of four female judges is a step in the right direction, despite the slow pace of gender transformation in the judiciary, said Mfanozelwe Shozi, chairperson of the Commission for Gender Equality.
On Thursday, President Jacob Zuma announced that four female judges had been appointed to the Bench.
The two new judges on the Western Cape Bench are former attorneys Gayaat Salie-Samuels and Kate Savage.
Zuma also announced the appointment of Judge Mahube Betty Molemela as Free State judge president, as well as Benita Mandy Whitcher as a judge of the Labour Court for a period of 10 years, with effect from January 1.
The appointments follow recommendations the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) made in October.
The commission sat in Cape Town for a round of interviews that spanned almost a week.
The issue of transformation of the judiciary, particularly gender transformation, cropped up in a number of the interviews.
“We wish the appointed judges all the best in their new responsibilities and we are confident that they will play an essential role in enhancing the country’s justice system,” Zuma said.
At October’s seminar on gender transformation in the legal profession, Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development John Jeffery questioned how much South Africa’s legal profession had transformed.
“The latest figures show that of our country’s 243 judges, only 79 are female. That is 32.5 percent. Although the racial diversity of the Constitutional Court in 20 years of democracy has gone from seven white judges and four black judges to the current Bench, where the majority of the judges are black, the same has not been achieved in terms of gender,” he said.
Cape Times