Walking here between the past and the future: A review essay Courting Justice 2008. A film created by Ruth Cowan, Directed by Jane Thandi Lipman

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.