LSB calls for review of magistrates' appointments
Mpho Mokwape | Friday February 5, 2021 15:06
According the society’s chairperson, Tshekiso Tshekiso the current approach for appointment of magistrates needs to be reconsidered.
Addressing the legal year opening on Monday, Tshekiso said the appointment of magistrates straight from graduation seems not to be working out properly as expected as most are young and without sufficient experience to be given such immense responsibility and power.
“Not only does it often lead to failure in delivery of justice, but also to exposing and possibly destroying professional careers of young legal practitioners,” he said.
He explained that the exuberance of youth might also sometimes unfortunately lead to wayward, rash, and unsympathetic conduct against litigants and legal professionals. The LSB’s outcry comes at a time when the Administration of Justice (AoJ) has, quite on a number of times, indicated that it was hard to attract top lawyers to the position of magistrates.
Also ,there was an outcry in 2018 when judicial condition of service review that was commissioned by the President, Mokgweetsi Masisi reportedly excluded the magistrates.
It was for the very same reason that many said failure by the AoJ to create a lucrative market for magistrates continued to impact negatively in attracting top lawyers and attorneys who were well experienced and established.
On the appointment of judges, Tshekiso said the society was still advocating for transparency and that they will continue to do so until changes are made. He explained that the appointment of judges was a critical task, especially in the dispensation of justice therefore that is why they still believe the process needs to be transparent.
The chairman noted that the country lacks transparency and cautioned that this was likely to lead to appointments that compromise quality of the justice dispensed and lower the standard of the courts and jurisprudence.
“There are whispers in some quarters that this fear may have already befallen us. We are convinced that everything must be done to ensure that not even localisation, which the Society remains an ardent proponent of, should be at the expense of quality and meritocracy,” he said.
When touching on some of the new amended rules of the courts, Tshekiso pointed out that the Society was concerned as they (rules) were regressive.
He said despite previous concerns, including litigation on empanelment by the Chief Justice, the new rules did not address the problem, but boldly removed any doubt that the Chief Justice shall decide which Judges are to hear which cases.
“This borrows a leaf from the Court of Appeal Rules which also boldly and without apology state that the Judge President of the Court of Appeal will at his own discretion decide which judges will hear which case.
Where is the perception of fairness and transparency? This will inevitably lead to complaints of judge shopping, going a long way to diminish the much-needed confidence in the administration of justice,” he noted.
He however acknowledged that the amended rules address a myriad of issues and that it was intended to improve the dispensation of justice, which was a good step in a long ongoing road to providing quality justice since it addressed many of the sources of complaints, especially timeous delivery of justice, including by the Registrar.