By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) is interviewing Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) President Judge Mandisa Maya for the position of Chief Justice.
Maya is the only woman among the candidates competing for the position.
She will be the second of four candidates to come before the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) for a day-long interview on Wednesday.
The JSC is set to interview Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo on Thursday, while Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo will have his turn on Friday.
Born in 1964, 60-year-old Judge Mandisa Maya started out as an attorney’s clerk and worked as a court interpreter and prosecutor in Mthatha in the late 1980s. After getting a B Proc from the University of the Transkei and later her LLB from Natal University in Durban. Maya holds a master’s in law from Duke University in the United States.
She was admitted to the Transkei bar in 1994 after doing her pupillage in Johannesburg.
Maya was appointed a High Court judge in Mthatha, in the Eastern Cape, in 2000. She acted as a Constitutional Court judge in 2011 and in 2017, she became the first woman president of the Supreme Court of Appeal, where she’s said to run a tight ship.
She is the first South African woman jurist who served as President of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa (SCA). She also wrote the first appeal court judgement in isiXhosa.
Maya was appointed as Deputy President of the SCA in 2015, and as President of the SCA in May 2017, after being appointed as acting president in 2016.
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Video Courtesy of JRSA.