[1] In May 2011, President Jacob Zuma appointed Mbatha permanently to the KwaZulu-Natal High Court;[3] she joined the bench on 1 June 2011.
[1] Among the high-profile cases before Mbatha was State v Ngubane and Others, in which nine men were convicted of killing three people during a spree of ATM bombings in KwaZulu-Natal.
[2] Also during this period, Mbatha joined the South African chapter of the International Association of Women Judges in 2017, and she served as the organisation's provincial coordinator for KwaZulu-Natal between 2018 and 2020.
[1] In April 2018, the Judicial Service Commission shortlisted and interviewed Mbatha as one of nine candidates for three permanent positions on the Supreme Court of Appeal,[7][8] but her candidacy did not succeed.
[2] In February 2019, the Judicial Service Commission shortlisted Mbatha again for permanent appointment to one of five new vacancies on the Supreme Court of Appeal.