EDITORIAL: Chief justice pick a defining moment
The person should be an influential leader, a strong administrator, a diplomat, a skilled communicator and policy maker, an intellectual leader who is independently minded with the highest degree of integrity
In August 2011, former president Jacob Zuma released a 700-word statement, detailing the reasons he had chosen Mogoeng Mogoeng as chief justice. It was an unprecedented move, but a necessary one — appointing the head of the judiciary is no simple feat and Zuma’s appointment of Mogoeng was hardly welcomed.For a start, there were questions over his conservative approach on issues of gender, as well as questions over his experience — or rather, his lack of it — on constitutional matters.But Mogoeng, largely, proved his detractors wrong. His legacy is relatively solid, and where it is marred, it is because of his comments on public platforms, not his judgments on the bench.A high point for Mogoeng was the Constitutional Court judgment on Nkandla in 2016, which arguably led to Zuma losing his grip on the ANC. The ruling held that the powers of the public protector were binding and that Zuma needed to repay some of the R246m spent on upgrading his private residence at Nkandla.It is a judg...
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