We are in a position to handiest nonetheless shock what went by means of President Ramaphosa’s mind when choosing Mediate Raymond Zondo over Supreme Court of Charm president Mandisa Maya as chief justice of the Constitutional Court. To all intents and functions, she gave the impact the preferred candidate of the nominations committee and would beget made historical previous because the principle lady within the intention. Nonetheless, Maya was once up in opposition to someone whose judicial and labour courtroom note document has helped shape SA’s legislative and judicial atmosphere, no longer to mention his impeccable Exclaim Take Commission helmsmanship. That’s a glowing onerous act to put together, without reference to how impartial your credentials are, without reference to gender … something the politically charged nominations committee made an almighty meal of. This reprise of his note document by Professor Omphemetse Sibanda of the University of Limpopo’s College of Administration and Rules is an impeccable summation of the man who will extra shape our historical previous and is smartly licensed by any requirements, to form so. Anecdote courtesy of The Dialog. – Chris Bateman
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South Africa has a weird Chief Justice: an introduction to Raymond Zondo
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa no longer too lengthy within the past presented the appointment of Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo because the next chief justice of the country’s Constitutional Court.
Zondo is most intelligent known for his characteristic because the top of the judicial rate of inquiry into allegations of rampant corruption, fraud and dispute take for the duration of archaic president Jacob Zuma’s tenure (May presumably 2009–February 2018. Zuma grudgingly established the associated rate in January 2018).
The cost’s work will whisk down within the annals of historical previous as having outlined Zondo’s tenacity as a intrepid judicial leader. Presiding over the politically charged inquiry noticed him lock horns with the archaic president, who bizarrely wondered his suitability to lead the associated rate after he had elected him to the intention.
The cost examined Zondo’s mettle. It sat over more than 400 days of hearings, that comprises more than 300 witnesses. In step with the associated rate, about 1,438 of us and entities were implicated by evidence old to the associated rate.
The , in a three-allotment document, made a ways-reaching suggestions in ridding the country of corruption, and constructing an efficient anti-corruption framework.
Additionally famous is Zondo’s going by means of of Zuma’s contempt of courtroom case old to the Constitutional Court. It resulted within the ruling that resulted in the imprisonment of the archaic president.
So, who’s Justice Raymond Zondo?
The early years
Raymond Mnyamezeli Mlungisi Zondo was once born on 4 March 1960 in Ixopo, a exiguous city on a tributary of the Mkhomazi River within the midlands of KwaZulu-Natal Province. Ixopo is most smartly-usually known because the environment for the 1995 South African-American movie, Cry the Loved Nation, in accordance with Alan Paton’s unusual of the identical title.
The younger Zondo’s father worked as a labourer in Johannesburg and his mother was once a nurse attend. He’s the third of nine childhood. He and his partner Sithembile Zondo beget four childhood. One in every of them is a cricketer, Khayelihle (Khaya) Zondo.
Zondo matriculated (carried out excessive college) at St Mary’s Seminary in Ixopo. He went on to eye laws on the University of Zululand and on the present time’s University of KwaZulu-Natal, earning an LLB. He went on to total three masters of Rules degrees (cum laude) in labour laws, commercial laws, and patent laws on the University of South Africa.
At some level of his training as a licensed genuine, he met with a spacious loss. His articles of clerkship in Durban beneath Victoria Mxenge, a human rights licensed genuine who fought fearlessly in opposition to apartheid, needed to be ceded after she was once assassinated by apartheid govt agents in 1985.
He was once appointed as a exclaim to the Labour Court in 1997. He then grew to change into a exclaim within the then Transvaal Provincial Division of the Excessive Court, now the Gauteng Excessive Court (1999). He was once elevated to exclaim president of the Labour Court in 2000. The exclaim president’s characteristic is to assemble leadership to verify judges within the division manufacture their judicial tasks diligently and effectively. Zondo noticed one other upward motion when he joined the Constitutional Court in 2012, later turning into deputy chief justice in 2017.
Profession highlights
Zondo’s renowned occupation is a tapestry of highlights: from licensed genuine to 1 of many senior judges within the South African judiciary. He has written more than 200 judgments.
In 1991 and 1992, he served in two committees of the Commission of Inquiry Relating to the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, chaired by Justice Richard J Goldstone. Its mandate was once to investigate the causes of political violence and intimidation for the duration of which some 20,000 of us had died within the last decade old to the free up of Nelson Mandela from penal complicated, and the unbanning of the liberation organisations, paving the draw in which for negotiations to total apartheid.
Additionally famous is that he was once the principle chairperson of the governing physique of the Commission for the Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, the mandate of which is to resolve labour disputes immediate and value-effectively.
In 1994, Zondo was once appointed as a member of the ministerial project crew tasked with producing a draft labour relatives invoice for post-apartheid South Africa. It culminated within the Labour Kinfolk Act of 1995.
The Total Bar Council has credited him with enjoying a main allotment in rising South Africa’s employment laws trusty into a respected, coherent and glowing scheme of laws.
One in every of Zondo’s essential judgments was once within the case Modise v Steve’s Spar Blackheath. On this case, the swap union SACCAWU demanded that the store and different Spar retail outlets conform to sever rate collectively with the union. The shop declined.
The majority of the staff who went on strike in November 1994 were chanced on by the Supreme Court to beget launched into an illegal strike. It granted an interim interdict forbidding the strike. The staff were subsequently brushed off.
They appealed their dismissal to the Labour Charm Court. Zondo, with performing charm exclaim Mogoeng Mogoeng – ironically Zondo’s predecessor as chief justice – concurring, held that the employer was once obliged to come up with the money for the strikers a hearing to exclaim whether to push apart them. Additionally, that the glowing to be heard may per chance well beget to peaceful be performed old to the issuing of an ultimatum to come to work or face dismissal, instead of afterwards.
Zondo space a precedence by discovering that the principles of audi alteram partem (let the different facet be heard as smartly) utilized in labour laws, and may per chance well beget to peaceful be noticed even in cases of dismissals in strikes.
By hook or by crook, this was once the confirmation of the glowing to procedural equity of unprotected striking staff.
It’s a ways evident from his many various judgments that Justice Zondo believes in upholding the rights and values enshrined within the country’s Constitution.
One other instance was once in Minister of Dwelling Affairs v Tsebe. Zondo would no longer enable the government to extradite a assassinate accused to Botswana without receiving an assurance that the demise penalty would no longer be utilized, as that would had been contrary to South Africa’s abolitionist arrive.
Chief Justice characteristic
When announcing Zondo’s appointment as chief justice, Ramaphosa illustrious:
The intention of chief justice carries a spacious accountability in our democracy. Because the top of the judiciary, the executive justice is a guardian of our Constitution and the licensed pointers adopted by the freely elected representatives of the of us. The manager justice stands because the champion of the rights of all South Africans and bears accountability for guaranteeing equal entry to justice. I if truth be told beget every self assurance that Justice Zondo will acquit himself with distinction on this intention.
The assertion is a certain indication of the sizable project looking ahead to Zondo in his unusual characteristic.
He’s one of many longest serving justices on the Constitutional Court, with the institutional memory required to lead the judiciary. But he comes in with the acknowledgement that there may be peaceful masses of work to be performed on the Constitutional Court and the judiciary in customary.
His unusual characteristic will include having to tackle what he known for the duration of his interview for the job to be myriad problems affecting the country’s courts, alongside with the delayed handing down of judgments. At some level of the interview he had this to claim:
I deem that a main justice in a rustic comparable to ours may per chance well beget to peaceful be any individual of integrity, who can present mental leadership, who has a demonstrable note document as a exclaim, any individual who’s ready to work with of us and is able to esteem the contribution of quite loads of leaders of the judiciary.
- Omphemetse Sibanda, Govt Dean and Elephantine Professor, University of Limpopo College of Administration and Rules, University of Limpopo. This article is republished from The Dialog beneath a Artistic Commons license. Learn the normal article.
Learn moreover:
- Paul O’Sullivan on Zondo: Time for the Al Capone arrive – here’s how NPA can rapidly build Myeni and Co on the encourage of bars
- Ramaphosa dare no longer blink in Zondo’s laser beam – Richard Calland
- Monetary Times level of view: Zondo creates Cyril’s “defining 2d”
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