The Judicial Officers Association of South Africa (JOASA) said they have no other conclusion except to believe that their long-overdue salary reviews are deliberately being snubbed by the state and the Independent Remuneration Commission (IRC).
This after magistrates across the country embarked on a peaceful protest outside Parliament in Cape Town and handed over a memorandum, giving the presidency two weeks to fast-track the salary adjustments.
The organisation’s president magistrate Neelan Karikan told YOUFM Newshour that magistrates’ salaries were adjusted 17 years ago.
“The last major review was done about 17-years ago, and this has been in the pipeline for some time now.
Now that a major review was concluded at least a year ago and ended up on the president’s table, unfortunately he did not attend it but referred it back to the Independent Remuneration Commission for them to revisit what they have already decided on.
To us it already means another year of neglect of the lower court judges, and right now they are at the woods end and clearly there’s been systemic economic abuse for the magistrates,” said Karikan.
JOASA is adamant that it is subjected to systemic discrimination and structural exclusion within the judiciary.
“Absolutely, it’s glaringly obvious, no one or no relevant stakeholder takes ownership of the lower court judges or magistrates. We go all the way up to our Chief Justice who is trying however there’s no real substance there. There’s a magistrate’s commission on the other hand that is more interested in misconduct inquiries instead of passing or recommending legislation or regulations to our Minister (Justice and Constitutional Development) so that she can attend to what is necessary for magistrates,” added JOASA president.
In addition, Karikan said that judges compared to magistrates earn much better, including receiving better benefits.
“Judges don’t pay towards any fund, but they get salaries for life, and how is that possible?
“Even regarding long service benefits, judges after 15 years get two years of salaries tax-free as an ex-gratia payment, while magistrates get nothing.
“Our colleagues end up under debt review, they don’t have medical aid, and we don’t have security,” decried Karikan.
JOASA has called on magistrates, lower court judges and other judicial officers to unite and challenge the system together.
“We don’t have a choice; we must be united and stand together on this. This does not affect just lower court judicial officers, it also affects a country, the running of our courts, access to justice for our people.
“Because if you’re a disillusioned judicial officer, how are you expecting our court system to run, who is benefitting from having a compromised judicial system, a criminal justice system, the civil court system, who is benefitting? Nobody,” Karikan emphasised.
He added that they feel betrayed by the system that has failed to protect them against exploitation.
“We are supposed to have three arms of government with independent judiciary; we cannot have a joint judiciary where we have the high court which is generally protected and the lower courts which are in majority doing 95% of all judicial work.
“We are ignored, we are side-tracked, we are threatened, and we are intimidated. What must we do?
“We have decided now to take a stand unapologetically, and whatever may come, may come but united we are going to stand on this,” concluded JOASA president.
