Abstract
Courting Justice is a documentary film about the role of women in building a human rights based democracy; South Africa is the democracy in question. The judiciary, the film makers argue, have a key role to play in ‘living the dream’ and of making that democracy happen. The role of women as members of the senior judiciary is the particular concern of this film. Courting Justice offers an intimate and revealing portrait of a number of women who at the time the film was made (2007-8) held high judicial office across the range of the superior courts in South Africa, from the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg to various High Courts. Through these lives the film’s 70 minutes (and there is also a shorter 54 minute version) present the arguments for judicial gender diversity, explores some of the challenges to and considers the future facing the women who have taken on, and who might in the future participate in, the important political role of being a judge.
Highlights
Courting Justice is a documentary film about the role of women in building a human rights 1 based democracy; South Africa is the democracy in question
The polemic that drives this documentary, a gender diverse judiciary, is central to the project 2 of building a democracy grounded upon human rights
The opening shot 3 positions us looking up before the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, situated next to a notorious former prison ‘The Old Fort’ that housed many of those involved in the political struggle against apartheid.3We are transported, by way of a voice-over by an unidentified male speaker, into the midst of a group of South African schoolchildren
Summary
Courting Justice is a documentary film about the role of women in building a human rights 1 based democracy; South Africa is the democracy in question. In unison they rehearse what appears to be a well known political slogan, ‘...you can build your future by using the past.’ On regaining control, our guide explains, ‘...when you are walking here between the past and the future, the past is where we are coming from and the future is the Constitutional Court.’ Law is the future and so the story of the women judges who are making that future begins.
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