Deputy Chief Justice Mandisa Maya, like Zondo, has a heavy burden

Perhaps now, more than at any time in the brief history of this democracy, the head of the judiciary has an onerous burden of preserving the constitution and the freedoms so many fought and died for.

For Deputy Chief Justice Mandisa Maya, the Chief Justice position will be filled at an unprecedented time of lack of faith in the institutions of democracy.

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The courts and judiciary are under particular assault at the moment from former president Jacob Zuma and his acolytes, who keep insisting that our current Roman-Dutch system of law should be replaced with what they call “African law.”

No surprise that Zuma, on the losing end of so many court judgments in the past decade, should want to get rid of those he sees as his tormentors.

His contempt for the judicial system has resulted in him earning a criminal conviction and a jail sentence, which prevent him from standing for political officer for five years.

Ironically, it has been that very judicial system to which he has turned, time and time again, in an effort to delay his trial on corruption charges…

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Maya, though, will be only too aware that the judiciary has become the real “thin blue line” holding out against the criminality which threatens to turn this country into just another failed state.

Her predecessor, Judge Raymond Zondo, was fearless in pursuing the state capture investigation which, despite its duration and cost, shone a light into the dark, evil spaces inhabited by the thieves in our government and their accomplices.

An uncaptured judiciary is our only defence against a capricious executive which may, like Zuma, decide that the rights in our constitution are colonial, outdated and irrelevant. That’s the weight Maya will carry