Prominent SC ‘appointed’ Act­ing ConCourt judge

SA senior coun­sel Tem­beka Ngcukaitobi has been appoin­ted as an Act­ing Con­sti­tu­tional Court judge. The Sunday Times learnt that the appoint­ment was made on Thursday. Although Pres­id­ent Cyril Ram­a­phosa has yet to announce it, sev­eral sources con­firmed the appoint­ment. Ngcukaitobi is believed to be the first black advoc­ate to be appoin­ted dir­ectly from the Bar to the Constitutional ­Court in an act­ing capa­city. As previously reported in Legalbrief Africa, Ram­a­phosa last month appoin­ted judges Nam­bitha Dam­buza-May­osi and Kath­ar­ine Sav­age to the court, mak­ing it one of the few women-major­ity apex courts in the world. Ngcukaitobi (49) was admit­ted to the Johan­nes­burg Bar in 2010 and awar­ded silk in 2020. One of his most not­able mat­ters was the Nkandla case where, as coun­sel for the Economic Freedom Fighters, he helped force Par­lia­ment’s hand over former Pres­id­ent Jacob Zuma’s hand­ling of the scan­dal. He was also accused by Zuma of ‘col­lu­sion’ with former Chief Justice Ray­mond Zondo in rela­tion to the State Cap­ture Inquiry. Ngcukaitobi has acted for the vic­tims of the Marik­ana mas­sacre and par­ti­cip­ated in the suc­cess­ful lit­ig­a­tion to halt Shell’s seis­mic blast­ing on the Wild Coast. He rep­res­en­ted Ram­a­phosa in set­ting aside a report by the Pub­lic Pro­tector con­cern­ing cam­paign fund­ing in the CR17 mat­ter.

In addition, Ngcukaitobi is on the legal team appoin­ted by Ram­a­phosa in SA’s case against Israel at the Inter­na­tional Court of Justice. The Sunday Times notes that he also rep­res­ents the fam­il­ies of the Cradock Four in the inquest into the 1985 murders of anti-apartheid act­iv­ists Mat­thew Goniwe, Fort Cal­ata, Sicelo Mhlauli and Spar­row Mkhonto. Ngcukaitobi and the Office of the Chief Justice declined to com­ment. Ram­a­phosa’s spokes­per­son, Vin­cent Mag­wenya, did not respond to calls and mes­sages.

Tem­beka Ngcukaitobi profile

Full Sunday Times report