WC High Court judge candidate grilled over judgment involving her cousin

JOHANNESBURG - A candidate for the position in the Western Cape High Court has tried to explain her judgment in a political matter involving her cousin.

Pearl Andrews was interviewed by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) on Tuesday.

The commission will interview ten hopefuls on Tuesday to fill four vacancies.

Andrews, who returned to the JSC for a second time, was asked to clarify the details of a matter that appeared before her in 2018 between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), where she ruled in favour of the DA while her cousin was a high-ranking member of the party.

"The first time that I was alerted to this was when a news article a week later was published. This was then raised. This obviously got me anxious about what happened – I had no idea that this matter had any type of impact on him being my cousin."

Meanwhile, some commissioners have pointed out how Andrews struggled with the questions on administrative issues as she was asked the same questions twice.