1. Mandisa Muriel Lindelwa Maya was born on 20 March 1964 and is the Chief Justice of South Africa.
23 Facts About Mandisa Maya
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Mandisa Maya was formerly the President of the Supreme Court of Appeal from 2017 to 2022 before she was elevated to the position of Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa in September 2022.
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Mandisa Maya joined the bench in May 2000 as a judge of the Transkei Division of the High Court of South Africa and was elevated to the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2006.
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Mandisa Maya was nominated unsuccessfully for elevation to the Constitutional Court in 2009 and 2012, and President Cyril Ramaphosa controversially declined to confirm her nomination as Chief Justice of South Africa in March 2022.
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Mandisa Maya was the president of the South African chapter of the International Association of Women Judges from 2018 to 2023, and she was appointed as the Chancellor of the University of Mpumalanga on 1 July 2021.
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Mandisa Maya was born on 20 March 1964 in St Cuthbert's, a rural area of Tsolo in the Transkei region of the Eastern Cape.
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Mandisa Maya's family moved to King William's Town in 1966 after her father got a job with Radio Bantu, and she attended school there until 1977, when, due to the disruptive effects of the Soweto uprising, she was sent to attend school in Mthatha.
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Mandisa Maya matriculated in 1981 at St John's College, Mthatha.
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Mandisa Maya studied towards a BProc instead, graduating in 1986.
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Mandisa Maya clerked at the Mthatha firm of Dazana Mafungo Inc, between 1987 and 1988, and after graduation she took up work at the magistrate's court in Mthatha, where she was a court interpreter and then a public prosecutor.
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In 1989, Mandisa Maya moved to Durham, North Carolina to attend Duke University School of Law on a Fulbright Scholarship, studying labour law, alternative dispute resolution, and constitutional law.
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On 1 May 2000, Mandisa Maya joined the bench permanently as a judge of the Transkei Division.
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Mandisa Maya was the chairperson of the South African Law Reform Commission from 2013 to 2016.
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Mandisa Maya was first interviewed by the Judicial Service Commission in September 2009 as one of 24 candidates for four vacancies.
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When Justice Zak Yacoob's retirement was announced later in 2012, Mandisa Maya declined a third nomination to stand for elevation to the Constitutional Court.
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In June 2015, Mandisa Maya was President Zuma's sole nominee for appointment as Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal, a position that had been vacated by Kenneth Mthiyane upon his retirement in 2014.
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President Zuma announced in March 2017 that Mandisa Maya was his sole nominee to succeed Mpati as Supreme Court President.
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In October 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that Mandisa Maya was included on a longlist of eight candidates to succeed Mogoeng Mogoeng as Chief Justice of South Africa, and the following month, he announced that he had shortlisted Mandisa Maya and three others: Raymond Zondo, Mbuyiseli Madlanga, and Dunstan Mlambo.
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In May 2022, Mandisa Maya accepted Ramaphosa's nomination to the position of Deputy Chief Justice.
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Mandisa Maya was a founding member of the South African chapter of the International Association of Women Judges in 2002.
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Mandisa Maya served as the chapter's deputy president from 2008 to 2010 and as its president from 2018 to 2023.
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Mandisa Maya was later elected as IAWJ's regional director for West and Southern Africa in 2021, and as its vice president in 2023.
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Mandisa Maya was awarded honorary LLDs by Nelson Mandela University in 2018, Walter Sisulu University in 2019, and the University of Fort Hare in 2020.