Judicial officers must never seek to be celebrities in the way they deal with cases‚ said chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng. Instead they should ensure they are independent and uphold their oath of office.
He was delivering his keynote address at the presentation of the first Judiciary Annual Report 2017/21 at the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg on Friday.
"Judicial independence is indispensable and adherence to the oath of office is just as critical and this is why judicial officers must never seek to be celebrities.
"They must never be populists in their approach to the issues because‚ if they attempted to be‚ then what is going to happen is injustice masquerading as justice‚" Mogoeng said.
Judges that sought to be celebrities would be checking what was in the media‚ what the analysts were saying and what the popular view on social media was - and then position themselves to decide in a manner that would enjoy public approval regardless of what the Constitution and the law demanded of them.
"And that would be corrupting justice."
Mogoeng said those who did not have connections to those who commanded the means of communication would always lose cases before the courts.