Justice Sisi Khampepe
Emeritus Justice Sisi Khampepe is the Chancellor of the University of Pretoria and a retired Judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, where she served from 2009 – 2021.
Justice Khampepe’s judicial career started with her appointment as a Judge of the Gauteng Division of the High Court in December 2000. She later served as Acting Deputy Judge President of the Labour Appeals Court and Labour Court. In October 2009, she was appointed to South Africa’s apex court, the Constitutional Court, where she served for twelve years, twice as the Acting Deputy Chief Justice.
Justice Khampepe obtained her B Proc from the University of Zululand in 1980. She obtained her LLM degree at Harvard Law School, Massachusetts, USA in 1982. She began her legal career as a legal advisor in the Industrial Aid Society, where she participated in a vacation employment programme from 1979 to 1980 and between 1981 and 1983, she served as a fellow at the Legal Resources Centre.
In 1983 she joined Bowman Gilfillan Attorneys as a candidate attorney. After being admitted as an attorney in 1985, she established her own law firm, practicing under the name SV Khampepe Attorneys. Her law firm was especially renowned for defending the rights of workers against unjust laws and unfair employment practices. She also represented other human rights bodies such as hawkers, civic and black consumer unions.
In 1995 she was appointed by former President Mandela as a TRC Commissioner and in the following year she was a member of the TRC’s Amnesty Committee. She was then employed by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development as Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions, a post she held from September 1998 to December 1999.
In October 2000, she was appointed as a Judge in the High Court and in the Labour Appeals Court in November 2007. In 2004, she was appointed by former President Thabo Mbeki to oversee the elections in Zimbabwe. In the period April 2005 to February 2006, she chaired the Khampepe Commission, a commission of inquiry into the mandate and location of the Directorate of Special Operations, also known as the Scorpions.
She was Vice-Chairperson of the National Council of Correctional Services from 2005 to April 2010. In October 2009 she was appointed as a Judge to the Constitutional Court. Justice Khampepe has been involved in numerous legal and community organisations including as a member of the Black Lawyers Association, Vice-Chairperson of Women’s Desk on Children and Women Abuse, member of the J G Strydom (Helen Joseph) Hospital Board of Governors and as a donor to Sparrow Rainbow Village (AIDS Hospice).
Judge Frans Diale Kgomo
Former Northern Cape Judge President Frans Diale Kgomo has presided over high-profile court cases that have broken new ground in upholding human rights and entrenching constitutional values.
Kgomo, who was born in Brits in the North-West Province, obtained an LLB degree from the University of Bophuthatswana (UNIBO) in 1985 and was admitted as an advocate in 1986 and practised at the North West Bar from 1986 to 1998.
Moving through the ranks in court, he became a court interpreter in 1969, a prosecutor in 1972, district magistrate in 1974, regional magistrate after that and then acting judge and judge in 1998 before being appointed Judge President in 2001.
He was a member of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers from 1988 to 1998 and served as a member of Lawyers for Human Rights for 10 years from 1989 to 1998. He gave judgment in landmark equality cases.
These include the court case of a judge who fought for the right of her same-sex partner to benefit from her pension pay-out. Kgomo found sections of the enabling legislation unconstitutional and referred the case to the Constitutional Court, where the ruling was confirmed. While presiding as a judge in the Pretoria High Court, he also made a judgment in another same-sex court case. In this case, another judge successfully sought a court order declaring that lesbian couples might adopt children, giving them the same rights as heterosexual couples.
Adv Andrea Gabriel SC
Andrea Gabriel SC completed her BA and LLB degrees at the former University of Natal, Durban, where she also worked for the Community Law Centre, part-time as a student and full-time after graduating. There her focus was on training and mentoring of paralegals from a wide range of communities in rural KZN.
After completing her LLB in 1993, Ms Gabriel was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to read for an LLM degree at Georgetown University, USA, where she focussed on constitutional law. This focus was driven by the impending entry of constitutionalism in South Africa in 1994.
On returning to South Africa, Ms Gabriel was appointed a researcher to then Justice, later Chief Justice, Pius Langa at the newly formed South African Constitutional Court. This gave her the privilege of being among the initial set of 11 researchers appointed in the first years of the Constitutional Court.
After working at the Constitutional Court, Ms Gabriel was awarded a further
scholarship to read for an MPhil degree at the National Law School of India in Bangalore where she wrote her dissertation on socio-economic justice, while lecturing
on constitutional law.
Ms Gabriel commenced practice as an advocate at the Durban Bar in 1998. She was
awarded the status of senior counsel in 2010. Ms Gabriel has had the privilege of
appearing in in several important cases before the Constitutional Court and the
Supreme Court of Appeal. She has a number of reported cases in the law reports
which reflect her work in the fields of public law, environmental, property
and tax law, as well as general commercial and civil litigation practice.
Her work at the Bar earned her an award from the Convocation of her alma
mater University for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Human Freedom and Endeavour,’
prior to her taking silk in 2010.
Over the years Ms Gabriel has been elected to positions within the KZN Society of Advocates, the General Council of the Bar and on the KZN Legal Practice Council.
Ms Gabriel also sits regularly as an arbitrator in civil matters. She has also completed several sessions as an Acting Judge in the KwaZulu-Natal Division of the High Court.
Ms Gabriel, along with four of her female colleagues, established the Alpha Group in the middle of the Covid Pandemic and Lockdown in 2020. The group focuses on mentoring and training of young, women advocates at the Bar, while simultaneously keeping chamber and practice expenses as low as possible.