More than half of the latest appointments to South Africa’s magistracy are women, bringing the total number of female magistrates to 863 out of a total of 1 803.
This means that, from February next year, 47,8% of the country’s magistrates will be female.
Ministry of Justice and Correctional Services spokesperson Chrispin Phiri said in a statement that 207 new magistrates’ appointments would take effect on 1 February 2020. Of these, 105 were women.
The successful candidates were drawn from a list of 608, who were interviewed by the Magistrates Commission in March and April.
Phiri said: ‘A fully transformed judiciary is a constitutional imperative. The new appointments will go a long way in further transforming our magistracy to reflect the demographics of our country.
‘More than half of our country’s population is female and therefore it is important that our bench reflects this.’
He noted that the number of women serving as magistrates had grown since 1998 by 166.9%, from 284 to 758.