Committee recommends moving E Cape high court seat to Bhisho
The interim report of the government’s committee to rationalise the areas served by SA’S high courts has recommended that the seat of the Eastern Cape division of the court be moved from Makhanda to the provincial capital, Bhisho.
The committee, headed by retired deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke, states that “ordinarily the main seat of a provincial division of the high court is located at the capital of the province.
“It follows that in the Eastern Cape too, the same situation should prevail.”
The committee has also made important recommendations relating to the jurisdiction of the various local high courts in the province, correcting anomalies in legal practice which have been in place since the apartheid era.
In many cases, the distances that litigants have been forced to travel to attend high court hearings will be halved by the recommended jurisdictions, which accord with the province’s eight magisterial districts.
East London and 10 towns in the former “white corridor ”— established to separate the high court and the people it served in white SA from those in the homelands — will be removed from Makhanda and divided between the Bhisho and Mthatha high courts.
East London, Komga, Qonce, litigating a few kilometres away in Bhisho.
Tsomo and Cofimvaba, formerly served by the Bhisho high court, will now fall under Mthatha.
Matatiele, located in the Eastern Cape but until now served by the Pietermaritzburg high court in Kwazulu-natal, will in future also fall within the jurisdiction of the Mthatha high court.
Kirkwood and Addo will be included in the Gqeberha high court’s jurisdiction, while Dikeni (formerly Alice) and Middledrift will now fall under Bhisho.
But it is the recommended shift of the seat of the court away from Makhanda which is likely to raise the most discussion.
For much of the constitutional dispensation, the legal fraternity in that city has united against moving the seat of the court.
Before issuing its interim report, the committee heard representations from the department of justice, judge-president Selby Mbenenge, the National Prosecuting Authority and Legal Aid SA.
It received input from some legal practitioners and said it would consider these once input had been elicited from other professional bodies and the public.
The committee specifically noted the justice department made no recommendation about the location of the division’s main seat.
The Dispatch understands Mbenenge, too, did not make