Magistrates cry foul over payment issues

The South African judiciary faces a potential disruption as magistrates, represented by the Judicial Officers Association of South Africa, may strike over pay discrepancies.

The association, which represents over 800 magistrates, said its members want the state to close the pay gap between magistrates and judges.

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The association’s Neelen Karikan said that over the past decade, magistrates have been getting the short end of the stick consistently.

He said key stakeholders, including the Independent Remuneration Committee, the president and ministers have failed to effectively deal with the magistracy’s issues relating to remuneration, pensions and the transfer policy.

He argued that the roles and duties of magistrates have incrementally evolved, but the salary structure of magistrates was skewed.

“We have been engaging with the Independent Remuneration Committee for more than a decade and those role players have been trying to do a major review for four years. But for some reason, the magistracy has been neglected,” Karikan said.

“It seems that in the committee and right up to parliament there is no willingness to ensure that the lower judiciary gets remunerated fairly and on time.”

Karikan added that magistrates have received zero cost of living adjustment from April 2023. He highlighted that the magistracy is the largest component of the judiciary and does about 95% of all judicial work.

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He said it did not make sense that, while they have the same jurisdiction as the high court, they were not paid reasonable remuneration.

“We are currently dealing with cases that ordinarily would have been in the high court – murder, rape and robbery – that have filtered down into the regional courts and also towards the district courts but there’s no acknowledgment of that,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Association of Regional Magistrates of South Africa has filed a case against the Independent Commission for Remuneration and the president in the High Court in Johannesburg for not taking compensating magistrates for the increased workload.

Ian Cox, president of the Association of Regional Magistrates of SA, said: “From 2016 we have been waiting for them to finalise the major review and they’ve been delaying continuously with lame excuses.

“The increments we got have been below inflation all along and we refuse to take the mishandling of the matter anymore.”