Chief Justice of South Africa

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Chief Justice of South Africa
List
  • 10 other official names:
  • Hoofregter van Suid-Afrika (Afrikaans)
  • Ijaji eliKhulu weSewula Afrika (Southern Ndebele)
  • iJaji eyiNtloko waseMzantsi Afrika (Xhosa)
  • IJaji eliyiNhloko yaMajaji aseNingizimu Afrika (Zulu)
  • Lijaji Lelikhulu weleNingizimu Afrika (Swazi)
  • Moahlodimogolo wa Afrika Borwa (Northern Sotho)
  • Moahlodi e Moholo wa Afrika Borwa (Sotho)
  • Moatlhodimogolo wa Aforika Borwa (Tswana)
  • Muavanyisinkulu wa Afrika-Dzonga (Tsonga)
  • Muhaṱuli Muhulwane wa Afrika Tshipembe (Venda)
Flag of South Africa.svg
Incumbent
Mandisa Maya
since 1 September 2024
Style The Honourable
Nominator Judicial Service Commission
Appointer President of South Africa
Term length 12 years
Inaugural holder Lord de Villiers
Formation1910
Deputy Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa
Website Office of the Chief Justice

The chief justice of South Africa [1] is the most senior judge of the Constitutional Court and head of the judiciary of South Africa, who exercises final authority over the functioning and management of all the courts.

Contents

The position of chief justice was created upon the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, with the chief justice of the Cape Colony, Sir (John) Henry de Villiers (later created The 1st Baron de Villiers), being appointed the first chief justice of the newly created Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa.

Until 1961, the chief justice held a dormant commission as Officer Administering the Government, meaning that if the governor-general died or was incapacitated the chief justice would exercise the powers and duties of the governor-general. This commission was invoked in 1943 under Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet, and in 1959 and 1961 under Lucas Cornelius Steyn.

History and creation of the post

The position of chief justice as it stands today was created in 2001 by the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of South Africa, as an amalgamation of two previous high-ranking judicial positions of chief justice and president of the Constitutional Court. The chief justice therefore now presides over the Constitutional Court. The position of the presiding judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, the successor court to the Appellate Division, was as a consequence renamed President of the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Chief Justice in a new era

At the time of South Africa's democratisation in the early 1990s, the position of chief justice was held by University of Cambridge graduate and Second World War veteran Michael Corbett. Corbett took office in 1989, succeeding Chief Justice P.J. Rabie, who had been scheduled to retire in 1986 at the statutory retirement age of 70, but had had his tenure in office extended on an ad hoc basis by state president P.W. Botha. [2]

However, with the fall of Apartheid imminent, the progressively-minded Corbett was eventually handed the job of chief justice in 1989. Although appointed by the National Party government, Corbett was generally well liked by those in South Africa's new African National Congress (ANC)-led government, and upon his retirement in 1996 was given a formal state banquet where President Mandela paid tribute to the chief justice's "passion for justice", "sensitivity to racial discrimination", "intellectual rigour" and "clarity of thought". [3]

The first chief justice to be appointed in post-apartheid South Africa was Ismail Mahomed, a leading South African jurist of Indian descent, who was selected to succeed Corbett in 1997 and eventually took office in 1998. Mahomed held the position until his death in 2000.

Under South Africa's Interim Constitution of 1993 and later the Final Constitution, the importance of the position of chief justice as the position of final judicial authority was temporarily relegated beneath that of the president of the newly created Constitutional Court. Ismail Mohammed had been tipped widely for the job of Constitutional Court president but in 1994, President Nelson Mandela appointed leading human rights lawyer and director of the Legal Resources Centre Arthur Chaskalson to the position. In 2001, after Mohammed's death and, consequently, with the position of chief justice vacant, the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of South Africa fused the positions of chief justice and president of the Constitutional Court into one single job of chief justice. Chaskalson was subsequently appointed to the new post, although his tasks remained effectively the same.

Chief justices of Cape Colony

Source: [4]

*1828 Supreme Court established

Chief justices of Natal (1856–1910)

Chief justices of Orange Free State (1875–1919)

List
No.Chief JusticeImageTenure
1 Francis William Reitz (1844-1934) WFReitz CHM VA0957.jpg 1874 - 1888
2Melius de Villiers (1849-1938) Coat of arms of the Orange Free State.svg 1889 - 1900
3 Andries Maasdorp (1847 - 1931) Coat of arms of the Orange Free State.svg 1902 - 1919

Chief justices of Transvaal (1877-1910)

List
No.Chief JusticeImageTenure
1 John Gilbert Kotze (1849-1940) John Gilbert Kotze.jpg 1881
2Reinhold Gregorowsky (1856-1922) Coat of arms of the South African Republic.svg 1898
3 James Rose Innes (1855-1942) Sir James Rose Innes, portrait.jpg 1902 - 1910

Chief justices of South Africa (1910 - present)

List of Chief Justices
No.Chief JusticeImageTenure
1 John de Villiers, 1st Baron de Villiers (1842-1914) John Henry De Villiers - Baron and Attorney General - Cape Colony.jpg 1910 - 1914
2 James Rose Innes (1855-1942) Sir James Rose Innes, portrait.jpg 1914 - 1927
3 William Henry Solomon (1852-1930) Justice WH Solomon.jpg 1927 - 1929
4 Jacob de Villiers (1868-1932) Judge Jacob de Villiers.png 1929 - 1932
5 John Wessels (1862-1936) Coat of arms of South Africa (1932-2000).svg 1932 - - 1936
6 John Stephen Curlewis (1863-1940) Coat of arms of South Africa (1932-2000).svg 1936 - 1938
7 James Stratford (1869-1952) Coat of arms of South Africa (1932-2000).svg 1938 - 1939
8 Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet (1873-1960) Nicolaas de Wet.jpg 1939 - 1943
9 Ernest Frederick Watermeyer (1880-1958) Coat of arms of South Africa (1932-2000).svg 1943 - 1950
10 Albert van der Sandt Centlivres (1887-1966) Student Representative Council, University of Cape Town, 1906 (cropped).jpg 1950 - 1957
11 Henry Allan Fagan (1889-1963) Henry Allan Fagan c.1916 (cropped).jpg 1957 - 1959
12 Lucas Cornelius Steyn (1903-1976)1959 - - 1971
13 Newton Ogilvie Thompson (1904-1992) Coat of arms of South Africa (1932-2000).svg 1971 - 1974
14 Frans Lourens Herman Rumpff (1912-1992)1974 - 1982
15 Pierre Rabie (1917-1997)1982 - 1989
16 Michael Corbett (judge) (1923-1997) Coat of arms of South Africa (1932-2000).svg 1989 - 1996
17 Ismail Mahomed (1931-2000)1997 - 2000
18 Arthur Chaskalson (1931-2012) Coat of arms of South Africa (heraldic).svg 2001 - 2005
19 Pius Langa (1939-2013) Coat of arms of South Africa (heraldic).svg 2005 - 2009
20 Sandile Ngcobo (1953)2009 - 2011
21 Mogoeng Mogoeng (1961) Mogoeng Mogoeng.png 2011 - 2021
22 Raymond Zondo (1960) Raymond Zondo.png 2022 - 2024
23 Mandisa Maya (1964) Mmaya img.jpg 2024 -

See also

References

  1. "Statement by President Zuma on the extension of Judge Ngcobo's Service". The Presidency. Government of South Africa. 3 June 2011. Archived from the original on 27 December 2011. Retrieved 11 July 2011.
  2. "Detectives and the Rule of Law - Solving Crime, the State of the SAPS Detective Service - Monograph No 31, 1998". Archived from the original on 2005-05-06. Retrieved 2005-06-26.
  3. "Pres Mandela at Banquet of Chief Justice Corbett". Archived from the original on 2004-12-15. Retrieved 2005-06-26.
  4. Zimmermann, Reinhart. Southern Cross: Civil Law and Common Law in South Africa.
  5. Zimmermann, Reinhart. Southern Cross: Civil Law and Common Law in South Africa. p. 110.