Rebuilding trust: tackling the legitimacy crisis in South Africa's courts

South Africa’s courts face a rare and dangerous strain of public scepticism. A recent StatsSA Governance, Public Safety and Justice report found that just 21.3% of households believe that courts are not corrupt. Few expect effective conviction rates: only 22.7% of respondents say courts deliver a high rate of convictions, and fewer than half (44.8%) are satisfied with how courts deal with perpetrators. These figures do more than reflect dissatisfaction; they signal a legitimacy deficit that threatens the rule of law and citizens’ willingness to engage with formal justice institutions.

The Confidence Crisis

Public confidence has not been dented by statistics alone. High‑profile hearings and allegations involving senior judicial office‑holders have amplified anxiety. Testimony at the Madlanga Commission and public hearings in Parliament have implicated leading figures and produced contested accounts of bail decisions, alleged influence and the flow of money around cases. The optics are corrosive: when an acting judge president faces allegations of impropriety, or when successive high‑profile accused are repeatedly released on bail only to be re‑arrested, ordinary citizens perceive the system as arbitrary or captured. That perception fuels two damaging dynamics. First, it saps cooperation with police and prosecutors; witnesses hesitate to come forward when they fear cases will be mishandled or reversed. Second, it encourages extra‑legal remedies and vigilantism, as communities seek swift answers outside slow courts.

The Consequences of Trust Deficit

One particularly stark measure of system performance – not merely perception – is delay. Only 3.1% of household victims in the 2024/25 period reported that the perpetrator was incarcerated, reflecting both investigative and prosecutorial bottlenecks and lengthy court processes. When the system cannot convert complaints into timely, proportionate outcomes, the promise of access to justice rings hollow for victims.

Addressing this crisis requires restoring procedural integrity and rebuilding public trust. There are many necessary reforms, but a single, strategically chosen intervention would recalibrate incentives and produce outsized benefits: institute mandatory temporary recusal and administrative leave for judicial officers formally accused of serious impropriety while the allegation is investigated by an independent body, coupled with expedited, transparent investigation timelines.

Recusal, or temporarily stepping aside, should not be framed as punishment. Rather, it protects the dignity of the judiciary while enabling impartial inquiry. When a judge remains on the bench amid sworn allegations of influence or corruption, every decision they make risks being viewed through a lens of suspicion. That perception undermines verdicts, slows appeals, and injects uncertainty into the criminal‑justice chain. A clear, binding procedure for leave would insulate courts from the reputational damage of protracted public controversy and safeguard litigants’ rights to impartial adjudication.

Proposed Solutions

First, the mechanism must be automatic and limited in scope: the moment a credible, sworn allegation of serious misconduct is made public or tabled to the Judicial Conduct Committee, the implicated judge would be placed on temporary administrative leave for a fixed, short period while the body determines whether the complaint has prima facie merit. Short, mandatory timelines (for example, a 30‑ to 60‑day initial assessment phase with a single renewable period) would prevent indefinite sidelining and avoid turning leave into de facto punishment.

Second, the investigating authority must be demonstrably independent and resourced to move swiftly. The Judicial Conduct Committee or a specially constituted independent commission should be empowered to investigate, subpoena evidence and deliver a reasoned finding within the statutory timelines. A small, professional investigative team with forensic expertise – including financial auditors and legal investigators – would accelerate fact‑finding and limit the political theatre that currently accompanies many enquiries.

Third, transparency and procedural fairness are essential. Findings and reasoning – redacting where necessary to protect privacy and fair‑trial rights – should be publicly released so citizens can judge the integrity of the process. At the same time, safeguards against frivolous or politically motivated complaints must be in place: clear thresholds for triggering leave, penalties for malicious complaints, and rights of appeal for implicated judges.

Restoring Public Faith

Adopting mandatory temporary recusal with expedited investigation would deliver several practical gains. It would restore public confidence by demonstrating that allegations are taken seriously and handled impartially. It would reduce the collateral damage of contested cases – appeals based on perceived bias would drop, and victims would see more stability in proceedings. It would also protect honest judges from the taint of unresolved allegations, allowing the judiciary to maintain its moral authority while the facts are established.

The crisis in confidence is not solely a judicial problem: it reflects weaknesses across the criminal‑justice ecosystem, from policing and prosecution to case management. But the courts occupy a symbolic and practical apex of that system. A focused reform that ensures allegations of misconduct are swiftly and transparently addressed, while protecting due process for judges, would be a decisive step toward repairing trust.

South Africa’s constitution rests on the rule of law. Restoring public faith in the judiciary is therefore not an act of internal housekeeping; it is a public‑policy imperative. Implementing a narrowly tailored, time‑bound recusal and investigation regime signals that no office is above scrutiny, that allegations will not be allowed to fester in the public domain, and that the judiciary can adjudicate both cases and complaints about itself with integrity. Only by demonstrating that the system polices its own can the courts hope to recover the public confidence that those recent StatsSA figures show has been lost.

(Budeli is a final-year LLB student at the University of Witwatersrand and an Associate of the Free Market Foundation. Her views don't necessarily reflect those of the Sunday Tribune or IOL)

SUNDAY TRIBUNE