 Becoming chief justice? Gendered fault lines in judicial leadership in South AfricaCathi Albertyn and Elsje Bonthuys Chapter 26 in Elgar Companion to Female Chief Justices in Comparative Perspective, 2026, pp 559-578 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: In July 2024, Judge Mandisa Maya was appointed as South Africa's first woman Chief Justice. This chapter explores how constitutional norms of transformation and gender equality can simultaneously enhance and impede the progress of women judges in two linked stories: first, the role of judicial transformation and gender equality in the post-apartheid context and their effects on Judge Maya's career; and, second, the central, but often spurious role that gender equality and transformation played in the 2022 Judicial Service Commission interviews for Chief Justice, in which Judge Maya was the only woman candidate. These illustrate how the weaponization of gender can work to the detriment of female—and even male—judges. Despite this, gender equality norms have enabled Justice Maya's advancement in positive ways and she has played a role in the gendered transformation of the judiciary, even though she seldom takes the lead in judgments on gender issues. Keywords: Mandisa Maya; South Africa; Judicial Services Commission; Judicial interviews; Chief justice; Gender equality; Supreme Court of Appeal; Constitutional Court (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22158_26 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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