Behind the scenes, a rift has occurred in the Pan African Bar Association of South Africa (Pabasa), highlighting the notion of the law as 'apolitical' as understood by a crop of younger members.
Last week, the gruelling Judicial Conduct Tribunal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Eastern Cape Judge President Selby Mbenenge adjourned to October for argument.
It is then that advocates Muzi Sikhakhane for Mbenenge, and Nasreen Rajab-Budlender for the complainant, court secretary Andiswa Mengo, will argue the case of a lifetime.
The public inquiry, which began in January and is headed by retired judge Bernard Ngoepe, has not only laid bare the intimate and private lives of Mbenenge and his accuser, but also choppy waters in the legal fraternity (for it is a fraternity) itself.
The creaking shifts in the tectonic plates can be traced in the arc of this extraordinary inquiry, which exposed a chasm between old and new, interpretations of language, the law and culture, and the meaning of words themselves.
As the Masimanyane Women's Rights International, the Women's Ikhwelo Network and other women's groups noted in a media statement last week, "words have power -- and consequences.
"We are appalled by the...
