Judicial Service Commission: White Men Can't Judge
News 24 & City Press | 07 April 2013
A commissioner of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) will tomorrow advise his employer to “come clean” and tell white male candidates that they needn’t bother applying to become judges.
And, in what may be seen as a startling indictment of the JSC, it has also been warned to guard “most strenuously” against the “pursuit of a covert political agenda under the guise of an alleged constitutional imperative (of transformation)”.
These statements are contained in a discussion document that commissioner Izak Smuts is due to present at a closed meeting of the commission tomorrow, ahead of a week of interviews in Cape Town.
In the document, which City Press has seen, Smuts says: “One way or the other, the JSC must deal with the uncomfortable perception that the graffiti on its wall reads ‘white men can’t judge’.”
He argues that “the JSC ought to have an honest debate about its approach to the appointment of white male candidates.
“If the majority view is that . . . white male candidates are only to be considered for appointment in exceptional circumstances, the JSC should, at the very least, come clean and say so, so that white male candidates are not put through the charade of an interview before being rejected.”
Smuts, a practising advocate and senior counsel, is something of a crusader in the legal profession. He recently quit his position as deputy chair of the General Council of the Bar over the council’s position on the Legal Practice Bill.
