DEAR Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng. I know that you knew you had the job of chief justice even before your intense grilling at the hands of those unpatriotic, vindictive and jealous Judicial Service Commission members.

The way they were gunning for you I thought you'd invite them to "take this outside".

Apart from that unfortunate outburst, you were the perfect picture of a good Christian soldier.

Your reward awaits you in the land of milk and honey. The problem with those heathens is that they don't hear God's voice as well as you do. Forgive them.

Now that you have had time to recover from this scrutiny and your appointment to the top job was confirmed yesterday, I would like to give you a few things to consider before you take up this anointed role.

The first is that you find new friends and supporters because the ones you have don't love you.

Jeff Radebe, Ngoako Ramatlhodi and all your sympathisers did not do you any favours by asking you easy, patronising questions.

My theory is they did this because they thought you needed protection and were not capable of tackling this task head-on.

By treating you like a fragile eggshell all they managed to do was communicate their own lack of confidence in your aptitude and competence.

Your supporters should have been the ones grilling you relentlessly about your suitability and trusted that you would survive.

A tough task is a chance to show your mettle. And this you did, whether people agree with your judgments or not.

I beseech you - the people you must fear the most are those who agree with everything you say.

Granted, that of all previous candidates, you faced the most intense pressure. But surely you can see that the amount of pressure is completely commensurate with the magnitude of the controversy of your nomination.

The intense scrutiny under which you have been placed has very little to do with you personally, but more a consequence of the office to which you have been nominated.

The reason the judgments for which you are being criticised escaped the radar when you were first appointed to the Constitutional Court two years ago is because people did not know you, but now you are about to assume the highest office in the judiciary makes your business, ourbusiness.

This is our country too and we want to be sure that the man entrusted with leading this vital office is deserving of our trust. Being questioned is not an attack.

Any individual who assumes leadership of the highest court in the land must expect and welcome robust scrutiny.

Long after you have left office we will still want the Constitutional Court to be the bulwark against extremism, injustice and corruption for future generations.

The paranoid politicians of Blade Nzimande's ilk, who suggest that this criticism is an orchestrated campaign to spite President Jacob Zuma, are wrong.

Lastly, your explanations on the particular rape cases that were discussed during your interview are devastating to me as a woman.

You argued that you have made many other judgments on rape cases before. But that is not the point, sir - we are dealing with the ones that have caused intense dissatisfaction.

It is frightening to be a woman or child in South Africa today and be vulnerable to rape. Even yesterday's crime statistics confirmed this horrible crime is up.

The last thing a victim wants is to be told is that it couldn't have been that bad because she/he is not limping, is known to the rapist or that because the victim is a young child, the rapist must have taken care not to hurt her.

As mitigating arguments in the case of the child, you said "the appellant is 31 years of age, he is unmarried, he is unemployed, he is suffering from chronic epilepsy, his highest qualification is Standard 7 (Grade 9) and he is staying with his unemployed mother".

So who else is allowed to rape women and children and get away with it?