Quote of the week
Mr Zuma is no ordinary litigant. He is the former President of the Republic, who remains a public figure and continues to wield significant political influence, while acting as an example to his supporters… He has a great deal of power to incite others to similarly defy court orders because his actions and any consequences, or lack thereof, are being closely observed by the public. If his conduct is met with impunity, he will do significant damage to the rule of law. As this Court noted in Mamabolo, “[n]o one familiar with our history can be unaware of the very special need to preserve the integrity of the rule of law”. Mr Zuma is subject to the laws of the Republic. No person enjoys exclusion or exemption from the sovereignty of our laws… It would be antithetical to the value of accountability if those who once held high office are not bound by the law.
Secretary of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector including Organs of State v Zuma and Others (CCT 52/21) [2021] ZACC 18
Pay hikes for judges?
Should the commission’s salary adjustments be adopted, it would see Chief Justice Pius Langa’s salary increase from R103 4302 to R1.7-million — a 65 percent raise.
The current gap between Judge Langa’s salary and that of ordinary judges is R82 000. The gap will go up to almost R600 000, if the salary increases go through.
Other top judges set to benefit are Judge Craig Howie of the Supreme Court of Appeal, South Africa’s nine Constitutional Court judges and 19 appeal judges, who could get an increase of 40 percent. More than double what their “poorly” paid junior colleagues might receive.
A 17% pay increase looks rather large compared to the 7.25% the government is offering the striking civil servants. Earning a million Rand a year seems like a relatively handy salary – especially if one takes into account that at retirement judges receive their full salary for life.
It is true, however, that the top black lawyers can earn much more in private practice, but few of the top black lawyers have actually decided to become judges. If all judges would get a 65% increase, we would be overpaying most of them, I would imagine.
And what about the idea that such a big gap between the salaries of judges would make judges ambitious and could sway them to make decisions that would be good for their careers? This seems a tricky issue. On the one hand one would imagine that it would exactly be those judges who make the best decisions who would be able to look forward to promotion.
On the other hand the nature of the Judicial Services Commission process, might leave room for conjecture that judges less willing to take on the government of the day would be more likely to be promoted. The monetary incentives to get to the Constitutional Court could then be said to put pressure on the judiciary to become more compliant.
I suspect this argument is not going to hold water in the long run. The really good judges will always shine and as long as the JSC system is not completely perverted, none of the judges that will be promoted will be promoted merely because they were compliant – they would have to demonstrate expertise and some brilliance.
Maybe I have a touchingly naive notion of the judiciary, but I cannot imagine that many judges (maybe Judge President Hlophe excluded!) would even think of making judicial decisions in such a Machiavellian manner. Only time will tell.
