A tribute to Justice Dikgang Moseneke

• Published date: 15 August 2019
• Date: 15 August 2019

A tribute to Justice Dikgang Moseneke*

KATE O’REGAN

†

It is a pleasure and honour to speak today in honour of my colleague,

Justice Dikgang Moseneke. Justice Moseneke has led an extraordinary life

as you all know. He was a young activist, an accused, and a sentenced

prisoner on Robben Island, all before the age of 16. He tells a poignant

and illuminating story about the f‌irst visit of his mother to see him on the

Island. His mother, a school teacher, had to journey across the country

from Pretoria for the one visit a year that he was allowed as a political

prisoner, despite his being only 15. That journey involved a more than 24

hour train journey on the wooden seats of third class travel that were

allocated to black passengers from Pretoria to Cape Town, making her

way through the city to the docks (not the V &A Waterfront of today) but

the rough and tumble docks of old, and then a bumpy ferry ride to

Robben Island where her son looked forward to her visit for weeks. On

the Island, there was a small visitor room. There, on laying eyes on her son

for the f‌irst time since he had been incarcerated on the Island, his mother’s

f‌irst question to him was why he had not done better in his school

examinations.

Not surprisingly perhaps, given his mother’s f‌irm admonishment,

Dikgang Moseneke obtained a B.A. and B. Iuris degree while on the

Island, and then later completed an LL.B. degree, all through UNISA. He

did articles in a Pretoria law f‌irm and was admitted as an attorney in 1978.

He formed the f‌irm Maluleke, Seriti and Moseneke where he practiced

for f‌ive years, and he then joined the Bar in 1983. This was not as

straightforward as it sounds: in the deep days of apartheid, the idea that a

black man should join the Pretoria Bar was opposed by many members of

that Bar. Atwo-thirds majority was required to permit black people to

join the Bar. When Dikgang Moseneke applied, that majority was not

achieved, and he served his pupillage in Johannesburg. When the Pretoria

Bar f‌inally amended its rules, he went to the Bar in Pretoria. Louis Harms

famously spoke out in support of Dikgang’s membership.

Twelve years later, Dikgang Moseneke was awarded silk, and he went

on to participate in the Multi-party Negotiating Process at Kempton

Park, serving with Arthur Chaskalson on one of the technical committees

that drafted the interim Constitution, as well as serving as Deputy

Chairperson of the IEC in the historic elections of 1994. After those f‌irst

elections, Dikgang Moseneke was appointed to chair Telkom, but in

* This tribute was f‌irst presented as a speech in honour of Justice Dikgang Moseneke at

Cape Townon 7 December 2016.

†

Former Justice of the Constitutional Court of SouthAfrica.

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2017 Acta Juridica 273

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