ANC discusses merger of SCA and Constitutional Court
14 July 2008

Transformation of the judiciary is high on the ANC's agenda, and discussions about the possibility of merging the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) are under way. The proposals are contained in a draft discussion document entitled 'Policy on the Transformation of the Administration of Justice', notes a Sunday Times report.  On the restructuring of courts, the document says there is a need to 'harmonise' the workings of the Constitutional Court and SCA to 'dispel the notion of two centres of judicial power by affirming the Constitutional Court as the highest court'. It says one way of doing this was to retain the SCA and the Constitutional Court as separate courts, but transform the SCA into an intermediate appeal court between the High Court and the Constitutional Court. 'Another option is to integrate or merge the SCA and the Constitutional Court to form a single Supreme Court. The merged court could have two chambers, one for general appeals and the other for constitutional matters.' On the governance of the judiciary, the document proposes that the Chief Justice exercise leadership 'over the entire judiciary, and judges president have delegated authority to exercise leadership in respect of judges and magistrates within their divisions'. It proposes that a 'Judicial Council' be established to assist the Chief Justice in his judicial governance.

Full Sunday Times report
 
The merger proposal is seen by the DA as another attempt to undermine the judiciary. The party's justice spokesperson Tertius Delport said the proposal should be seen for what it was: a 'blatant attempt to undermine the constitutional principle of the separation of powers'. According to a Cape Times report, he said another reported proposal, for a statutory agency with its own Director-General to administer the courts, was a re-warming of the unconstitutional Superior Courts Bill. The Bill had been withdrawn from Parliament after it was rightly rejected by judges last year. 'The ANC's repeated attacks on the judiciary seem more and more to be elements of a concerted effort by the ruling party to immunise its incoming executive leadership from independent scrutiny of any kind,' he said.

Read article here