Bolch Institute | Judgment Calls: A Conversation with Hon. Dikgang Moseneke

David F. Levi, director of the Bolch Judicial Institute, joins Hon. Dikgang Moseneke for a discussion of Moseneke’s recent memoir “My Own Liberator.” Dikgang Moseneke, Former Deputy Justice, Constitutional Court of South Africa, was born in 1947 in Pretoria, South Africa. He was arrested at age 15 for opposing apartheid, the state system of institutionalized racial segregation, and sentenced to 10 years in the prison rock quarry of Robben Island, Cape Town, South Africa. His fellow political prisoners included future South African presidents Nelson Mandela and Jacob Zuma. While in prison, Justice Moseneke earned two degrees through a correspondence course with the University of South Africa. He went on to become a leading law practitioner, defending political prisoners and representing corporations. As apartheid ended, Justice Moseneke helped draft South Africa’s Interim Constitution. A year later, in 1994, he served as the deputy chair of the Independent Electoral Commission that oversaw the tense first democratic elections in South Africa. He was appointed to the nation’s High Court in 2001 and elevated to the Constitutional Court in 2002; he became the deputy chief justice in 2005, a position from which he retired in 2016. Justice Moseneke’s legacy as a leader in the law includes jurisprudence on affirmative action, rule of law, separation of powers, socio-economic rights, property, economic justice, and anti-corruption law. He earned the 2018 “Order of Luthuli in Gold,” South Africa’s highest honor, in recognition of his “exceptional contribution to the field of law and the administration of justice.” He holds multiple honorary degrees, has held numerous positions of leadership in business, higher education, government, and law, and is a widely published scholar.

Sponsored by the Bolch Judicial Institute.