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By CLARE NULLIS
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - A former shirt factory worker was handed the chief justice's robes Friday at a ceremony marking the appointment of the first black South African to head a court system assailed by allegations of racism.
President Thabo Mbeki, addressing a special Parliament session to welcome Pius Langa, said the need for transformation persists in a court system still dominated by white men more than a decade after apartheid's demise.
"I believe that the new leaders of our judiciary will help us successfully to respond to these challenges,'' Mbeki said.
The Cabinet is expected to consider proposals this year to speed up the promotion of other races and of women in the court system - regarded as an instrument of oppression under white minority rule.
Mbeki dismissed claims by opposition parties that the plans to make the judiciary more reflective of South African society amount to political interference.
He said transformation "was precisely about ... the need for an independent judiciary that would ensure that law and justice would not stand in opposition to each other, as they did in our country for many centuries.''
South Africa has 207 judges - 97 of them black and only 23 women. It is a far cry from the advent of all-race democracy in 1994 when all but a handful of judges were white, but the government says it still isn't enough. Most lawyers are white men.
Earlier this year, Judge John Hlophe, president of the Cape provincial division, issued a scathing report alleging black judges were ridiculed by their peers and white lawyers deliberately tried to undermine them.
The 66-year-old Langa - formerly deputy president of South Africa's highest court - has been asked to head an investigation into ways of tackling racism and sexism in the judiciary.
Langa did not speak at Friday's ceremony but has previously said it is no surprise there is lingering racism in the judicial system, given South Africa's history of racial oppression. He vowed to stamp it out, saying he was "impatient'' with the rate of change.
His appointment comes at a time when black South Africans are being fast-tracked into leadership positions in business, politics and civil society - causing complaints by some members of the tiny white minority that color has become more important than merit in securing top jobs.
Langa, however, has earned widespread respect as deputy president of the Constitutional Court, created to uphold the new constitution drafted after apartheid's end.
The new chief justice began his working career in a shirt factory in 1957. Three years later, he got a job as a messenger and interpreter in the Department of Justice.
Studying at night to gain his professional qualifications, he slowly worked his way up the legal system, gaining a reputation for defending black activists under apartheid. In 2000, he was appointed the Commonwealth's special envoy to assist in the restoration of democracy in Fiji.
Langa officially took over as chief justice of the Constitutional Court on June 1. He replaced Arthur Chaskalson, who helped defend former President Nelson Mandela during the 1964 treason trial that sent him to jail for 27 years.
Langa's deputy, Dikgang Moseneke, is also a Constitutional Court judge and spent 10 years in prison for opposing apartheid.
"The change in leadership brings to the head of the judiciary two outstanding judges who know from their life experience what it means to be denied human dignity, equality and freedom,'' said Chaskalson, who was also hailed Friday as an architect of democracy.
"It is symbolically important, as it marks another significant stage in the process of the transformation of the judiciary,'' Chaskalson said, but added: "More needs to be done.''
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