By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Judicial Service commission is looking to fill a range of posts in the country’s various superior courts, including that of KwaZulu-Natal Judge President.
The ball started rolling on Monday, with interviews for spots at the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).
Eleven candidates are vying for five vacancies on the SCA bench.
Six are scheduled to take the hot seat on Monday, including KwaZulu-Natal High Court Judge Piet Koen, who is currently presiding over former President Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, and North West High Court Judge Anna Kgoele.
They’re up against Eastern Cape High Court Judges Glenn Goosen and Mandela Makaula; and Gauteng High Court Judges Pieter Meyer and Daisy Molefe.
Judge Elias Matojane is one of the candidates being interviewed by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) as it searches for judges to fill vacancies in the superior courts.
You want to get me into trouble?” said Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) Judge candidate Matojane after Julius Malema, a member of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), asked him what society would benefit if an 80-year-old were to be incarcerated.
Malema said by the time an older inmate “gets into society [they] are no longer a human being, they are remains”.
Malema had first asked Matojane about his understanding of why South Africa’s prison system was called correctional services.
Matojane replied that the idea of correctional services was to rehabilitate with the intention of reintroducing individuals back into the community.
On the question of what society would benefit if an elderly person were to be incarcerated, Matojane said: “My answer to you is that you should understand the nature of our work as judges. Parties bring their dispute to us before court.”
Matojane said judges rely on what is brought before them and they can’t go beyond what is before them and do their own “little research on the corner”.
“Your hands are tied. You are called upon to discuss an issue, not to speculate. The question that you are asking is very hypothetical. The nature of my job is hearing evidence, be open to persuasion by counsel… and make a decision,” he said.
But Malema again asked if it was in the best interest of society to incarcerate older people, if it was not in line with what the correctional service system seeks to achieve, which is rehabilitation.
Matojane said: The short answer is that you want to get me into trouble by giving an opinion on a hypothetical set of facts, and I am saying to you, as a judge, I don’t go out looking for cases for adjudication. It is the parties who come to me with their dispute, and my job is to adjudicate.
“And, secondly, I know where you are going with that question – that matter is pending before the Supreme Court of Appeal. I am out of it. Whether I am right or wrong, a higher court is going to relook at the evidence, and then they will decide. If I am wrong, they will say so. It is not really for me to answer that question, Mr Malema with due respect.”
Malema said he didn’t know what matter Matojane was talking about.
But Matojane asked Malema if he was not raising the matter in a “wrong forum”.
The matter Matojane was referring to relates to his ruling last year that former national commissioner of correctional services Arthur Fraser’s decision to place former president Jacob Zuma on medical parole was unlawful.
He then ordered Zuma to return to jail, adding that the time Zuma spent out of jail on medical parole should not be counted for the fulfilment of his 15-month sentence imposed by the Constitutional Court.
Later, Matojane granted Zuma and the Department of Correctional Services leave to appeal against his ruling. He said the matter needed the attention of the SCA. He also added that another court might find that, because of Zuma’s illness and age, the former president needed to be shown “compassion, empathy and humanness – the essence of ubuntu”.
“I am also of the view that there is a reasonable possibility that another court may find that the order, that [Zuma] time spent on medical parole should not count towards fulfilling his sentence, as these impacts on him unfairly in that it was not his decision but that of the commissioner to be released on medical parole,” he ruled at the time.
Livestream Video Below:
Video Courtesy of JRSA.