Judge must only be judged on merit - The Citizen

A bizarre exchange at the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) interviews last week is a perfect example of the demeaning requirements of navigating the social engineering demands of the government.

The JSC is conducting 54 interviews to fill 26 judicial vacancies. The first question posed to Gauteng High Court Judge Phillip Coppin by Chief Justice Mandisa Maya was: "I wanted to get something out of the way. It's a nasty question but a necessary one. We live in South Africa and this is an issue for us and it's the issue of your race.

"You've described yourself as coloured in your form, which is what should guide us, but one of the professional bodies has written in and said you're a white male and so will you assist: are you a white male?"

Coppin said that he and his parents were "biracial"... "so I share black African relatives and supposedly white relatives I never got to know. My life was lived more in black society, though I was coloured."

The social engineering de mands of the government go further. Institute of Race Relations IRR fellow Gabriel Crouse wrote recently of the 20 000 "race" inspectors the department of labour and employment plans deploying to determine whether businesses are complying with the Orwellian demands that BBEE legislation, regulations and charters place on employers.

The IRR has opposed racialism throughout its near 100 year existence and, post1994, has crafted a nonracial empowerment proposal, economic empowerment for the disadvantaged, aimed at helping the poor, whoever they may be.

Coppin overcame his disadvantage. He deserves the respect of being judged solely on his merit.

Sara Gon

Institute of Race Relations