Interviews with candidates to fill the two vacancies at the Constitutional Court have been postponed until Wednesday.
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) was expected to sit on Monday morning to conduct the interviews with the six candidates, but no interviews took place.
The top court has 11 permanent members on the bench, but the positions left vacant by the promotion of deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo in March 2017, and the retirement of justice Bess Nkabinde in 2018, have not yet been filled.
Candidates to be interviewed for the Constitutional Court vacancies are high court judges Annali Basson, Patricia Goliath, Jody Kollapen and Fayeeza Kathree-Setiloane, and Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judges Stevan Majiedt and Zukisa Tshiqi.
JSC spokesperson CP Fourie said SCA president Mandisa Maya was present on Monday, but that she could not sit in on the Constitutional Court interviews given a “possible conflict of interest”. Fourie did not elaborate as to what the conflict of interest was.
He said they were confident that the interviews would be able to take place on Wednesday.
According to the law on how the JSC is constituted, the SCA president or deputy president must sit in for the JSC to be quorate.
Interviews with candidates for the five vacancies on the SCA bench will continue on Tuesday. Nine judges will be interviewed for those vacancies: Daniel Dlodlo, Trevor Gorven, Caroline Nicholls, Yvonne Mbatga, Pieter Meyer, Fikile Mokgohloa, Selewe Mothle, Clive Plasket and Owen Rogers.
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