South Africa appoints first woman CJ

President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Mandisa Maya, the current Deputy Chief Justice, as the new Chief Justice of South Africa. She will assume her role on September 1, taking over from Chief Justice Raymond Zondo who is retiring.

Maya, 60, previously served as the judge president of the Supreme Court of Appeal before being promoted to the Constitutional Court. She made history as the first Black woman to be appointed a judge at the Supreme Court of Appeal, and later became the first woman to serve as deputy president and president of that court.

Ramaphosa nominated Maya for the chief justice position in February, and after being interviewed by the Judicial Services Commission in May, she was recommended for the role. Ramaphosa stated that Maya’s appointment would be a significant milestone for the country.

Maya grew up in a rural area of South Africa’s Eastern Cape province and went on to win a Fulbright Scholarship to study law at Duke University in the United States in 1989. This was a rare achievement for a young Black woman during the apartheid era.

After initially intending to study medicine, Maya changed her focus to law on her first day of university in South Africa after seeing a medical textbook. With her appointment as Chief Justice, Maya will break the trend of having all-male chief justices in South Africa since 1910 when the post was first created during the British colonial era.

Maya will be the eighth chief justice since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, marking the end of apartheid and the system of white minority rule.