The term of a Law Clerk is one year, and may be extended by further period of seix months at the discretion of the Justices and the Justice that the Clerk works for.

Clerks are appointed by the Justices themselves after extensive screening and interviews, which the Justices conduct themselves or asks another Justice to conduct them on their behalf. The Justice department has no role whatsoever other than drafting the contracts and paying the salaries.

Clerks are appointed based on strict requirements and one of the requirements is race, balance must be achieved, ie people from rural areas, suburbs, different university law schools must come together.

The CC must be the first to lead by example in complying with the Constitution, the demographics must mirror what we see in society. People must not come to the court and wonder why there are more whites than blacks, coloureds in a society where whites are a minority and in a society where we are trying to redress the imbalances of the past.

I assure you that there are a lot of blacks who are good in Human rights Law and Connstitutional law, but are constantly overlooked by the CC.

I’m offended by you remark Nkululeko that i make more these days. Frankly, you have your own opinions and i have mine, who are you to tell me that i make more sense these days?????. You dont even know me that well, but your arrogance allows you to comment in such an offensive, school boy manner!

As far as the law clerks are concerned – how long does one stay a ‘law clerk’? Is there room for AA in the foreseeable future? Furthermore, specifically directed at Skhoko’s feeling that Ncgobo is biased in this regard: Are the law clerks appointed by the Justices, or by the Admnistrative component of the Department of Justice (that so dearly wants to take control of the Judiciary)?

On the terms of office. Skhokho is correct that its 70yrs, for retirement. I think this was to avoid making our CC like the USA Federal Supreme Court with its lifetime appointments. That also seems to be one of the reasons to ensure that the President consults the opposition leaders AND he should get good legal advisors (he can afford it now, can’t he?).

What I would like is an Act of Parliament that extends the terms of O’Regan et Sachs JJ. If Mokgoro J is also near the door, I would love for her to stay. they bring about a different way of looking at the law. I also believe that their findings are, at times, more accurate than the majority finding (the case of voting and green bar-coded ID’s and, S v Jordan .

I think we should be careful of what we ingest from the media, a lot of it is unresearched and based on undisclosed sources, which begs the question whether these unnamed sources existed in the first place?

@Nkululeko, we have many talented Law Students and graduates in RSA, especially blacks who come from poor families. The demographics of the clerks are shocking to say the least. This does not reflect the fact that we are trying to address the imbalances of the past, and that Clerks must mirror the demographics and make-up of society. Especially from the supposed protectors of the Constitution.

Lawyers.
Well if he is a Harvard graduate, he’s substantially de-muntufied. Even Mbeki, had to go because he’d lost his Toy-toy groove.
After living abroad you’d also prefer to employ those educated in ‘the Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland’. Hence xenophobia ?

Ncgobo J has not yet been ‘appointed’ in the true sense of the word. He is just Jacob Zuma’s prime choice for the posistion, and that is what has been announced. The announcement of this choice does not mean that s 174(3) has now been overlooked as suggested by the DA et al. Nothing wrong for the President to ‘nominate’ or ‘publicise’ his choice for CJ before ‘consulting’ with the JSC and leaders of parties represented in the NA; and, if during the ‘consultation process’ he is not convinced that another person would be a better candidate, to then ‘appoint’ him in terms of s 174(3). This is how ncgobo sees it according to an article in Beeld this morning. An interesting remark by him is that, if he is in fact ‘appointed’ when Langa CJ leaves office, he is not necessarily limited to a period of two years in that office. He points out that the President may request him to serve as CJ up to the age of 75 years, which is 19 years from now. This might mean, however, that he has not only been ‘approached’ to see whether he would be willing to serve as CJ, but that the discussions went deeper than that. Hopefully this shows that even Jacob Zuma has a distrust in Hlophe JP being up to the job of leading the Highest Court or even of serving on it. But, maybe I’m reading too much into what Ngcobo has been saying at his home in the South of KZN.

It’s common knowledge that current Indian litigations drag out for years,
and sometimes for generations. I assume that at independence they took
over the English time limits, as did SA. But with the realities of Indian
life, these time limits were seen to be not achievable.
Were the rules accordingly changed, or were they just ignored ?
——–
As SA transforms, it’s politically difficult to admit that time-rules can’t
be met due to the society ‘un’-developing. I’ve been studying CCT 12/07,
[ http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2007/24.html ]
as, presumably, one of the latest authorities on late condonation.
Is there an official acknowledgment that mid 1900′s designed time
limits can’t realistically be met in currently incapacitated SA?

PS. does this forum ever spread knowledge, by providing answers,
to posed questions, like Usenet does ?
Admittedly blog-format is less suitable for threaded-dialog.