Chief magistrate gets promotion

Tule-Tu Tonjeni, Springs Magistrate’s Court’s chief magistrate, is leaving for Mbombela on September 26.

She got a promotion to become the chief magistrate of Mbombela Magistrate’s Court and to be the cluster head for the province of Mpumalanga from October 1.

“I never imagined that I will end up in Mpumalanga,” she says.

She will be overseeing 36 courts throughout a province, which has a lot of diverse communities and languages.

“It is a huge responsibility to ensure justice for all the people in Mpumalanga and to ensure that justice gets to all the people, even to those in the remotest parts of the province,” says Tonjeni.

She is sad to leave Springs, as it is the place she originally learned how to become a chief magistrate.

In 1999 she started working as magistrate at the Springs Magistrate’s Court, where she, over the years, presided in all the courts.

She was a lecturer at the civil court training component of the Justice College since 1996, before she came to Springs.

She became Springs’ chief magistrate in 2004.

During 2007 she moved to Cape Town to be chief magistrate and Western Cape Cluster Head at the Wynberg Court.

After her years in Cape Town, Tonjeni spent a while in Pietermaritzburg before coming back to Springs as chief magistrate in December last year.

She thanks the community of Springs for their support throughout the years, as it was in this office that she had learned a lot about her work and about life.

“Springs will always be home,” says Tonjeni,