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Appointment of women in judiciary found lacking

Appointment of women in judiciary found lacking

7th December 2016

By: African News Agency

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The pace of the appointment and promotion of women in the judiciary has remained slow, with “finger-pointing” from authorities as to who is ultimately responsible for ensuring gender transformation in the judiciary, a report released by the Commission for Gender Equality has found.

The report into the transformation of the country’s judiciary followed complaints lodged with the commission by two non-government organisations, Democratic Governance and Rights Unit and the Sonke Gender Justice in 2012. The two organisations complained that gender transformation in the judiciary was too slow and did not reflect the racial and gender composition as guided by the Constitution.

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Commission chairperson Mfanozelwe Shozi said stakeholders were “found wanting” when it came to prioritising women in the industry.

“The pace in the judiciary is very slow, the parties included in the report have been found wanting…they should jerk themselves up and put systems in place to ensure transformation in the judiciary. This should include the private, gender equality should be at the center of transformation,” Shozi said on Wednesday.

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“The lack of gender transformation is not only applicable to permanent posts, but it is also reflected in the appointment of acting judges.”

The four-year-long investigation saw judge presidents, the President of the Republic, the Department of Justice and Correctional Services, the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) and the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court requested to answer questions on gender transformation of the judiciary.

The commissioners said there were gaps in the information received from the respondents and some answers were not dealt with satisfactorily.

“The information submitted to the commission shy away from the barriers, behaviour and unwritten rules of the profession that impede talented individuals from progressing,” said Shozi.

“These barriers, which are often brought by rules, practices and attitudes about women that are stereotypical and hurtful, occur throughout the lifespan of the legal career.”

At the time the complaints were lodged, it was found that between 2009 and 2012, the JSC interviewed 211 candidates for 110 positions and only 24 women were appointed.

For the period between 1994 and 2013, the JSC, in its submissions to the commission, said there had been progress as there were 165 judges in 1994, 160 of whom were white men, three were black men and two white women. There was no black woman judge in South Africa at the time.

In 2013 there were 173 male judges and 74 female judges, it said.

The commission said it was discouraged by the response from the Department of Justice, which said that out of 1661 magistrates appointed, 687 were women.

“The magistrate pool is one of the areas where judges are drawn from. Be that as it may, the transformation of new appointments cannot be seen in isolation and needs to be formally compared with the number of appointment of judges. One can also ponder why the magistracy is transforming at what seems to be a far more escalated rate than the appointment of judges.”

Shozi said the department has set a target of 76 percent of briefs to be given to black and female practitioners, and acknowledged that part of the 76 percent should be strictly earmarked for black women. In the 2014/2015 financial year, the value of briefs given to female counsels totalled R139-million compared to R515-million given to male counsels, a huge gap in the ministry’s own target. Overall, 79 percent of briefs went to men, and only 21 percent went to women.

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