I’ve been following the Oscar trial (obviously) and even though I got mildy irritated with her at first as I felt she was protective of Oscar, I’m now getting to like Judge Masipa. She’s super calm, seems very reserved and I love that she’s not a judge who loves the spotlight. She’s firm when she needs to be and watching the hearing, no one can accuse her of not being fair.
So I went online to dig and find out who she is and where she comes from. This is what I found:
Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa was born in 1947 in Soweto, Johannesburg.
- She matriculated in 1966 from the Immaculata High School in the Alexandra township.
- She then obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree, specialising in Social Work, in 1974 and a Batchelor of Laws in 1990, from the University of South Africa.
Masipa was admitted as an advocate in 1991.
Prior to her law career, Masipa worked as a social worker as well as a crime reporter, which led to her interest in law. She worked for The World, Post and The Sowetan newspapers. She edited the Queen women’s supplement of Pace magazine.
- In 1998, she was appointed as a judge in the then Transvaal Provincial Division of the High Court of South Africa, becoming the second black woman to be appointed as a judge in the High Court after Lucy Mailula.
- Masipa has also served in Gauteng’s Consumer Court Tribunal, the Estate Agents Affairs Board as well as in the Electoral Court of South Africa.
Previous judgements by Judge Masipa:
No mercy for abusive men
In May last year she handed down a 252-year sentence to serial rapist and robber, Shepherd Moyo, after he was arrested and tried after a seven-year crime spree. Moyo terrorised residents in northern Johannesburg; he would ransack their homes and in some instances, rape his victims.
Masipa found him guilty on 11 counts of housebreaking and robbery, three of rape and one of attempted murder. She sentenced him to 15 years for each of the 11 robberies, 12 years for attempted murder and life sentences for all three rape charges.
In her judgement, Masipa said Moyo was a detriment to society who forced his victims to become prisoners in their own homes after he had attacked them. She added that the rape victims never recovered from the trauma and said, “What weighs with me very heavily is that the accused showed no remorse, therefore it is difficult to imagine he can be rehabilitated.”
In another case of a violent crime against a woman, in 2009, Masipa handed down a life sentence to police officer, Freddy Mashamba, for shooting and killing his wife, Rudzani Ramango. During an argument over a divorce settlement in May 2008, Ramango and her aunt, Patricia Ramango, jumped into a vehicle and tried to flee from Mashamba. The officer, enraged, gave chase until they stopped behind the charge office at the Louis Trichardt police station. It was here that he shot at his wife, hitting her seven times in the face and three in the chest. She died at the scene; Patricia Ramango escaped unhurt.
He was tried at the Polokwane High Court with Masipa as the judge. She said the sentence she handed Mashamba was meant to serve as a lesson to police officers that conflict cannot be solved with violence. “No one is above the law,” she said. “You deserve to go to jail for life because you are not a protector, you are a killer.”
Siding with the poor
Masipa presided over a landmark case in 2009 that gave precedence to the rights of the poor. In June 2005 Blue Moonlight, the new owners of a building in Saratoga Avenue in Berea, Johannesburg, posted notices asking its 86 occupiers to vacate the property. The City of Johannesburg followed this up in October that year by issuing their own notice to occupiers to vacate the premises under its Fire Brigade Service Act. The residents did not move.
Blue Moonlight then brought a high court application to have them evicted. The occupiers opposed the eviction and asked if the city council could provide alternate accommodation if they were to move. However, the City claimed that it was not their duty to find alternate accommodation as the occupiers did not qualify for emergency relocation. When the matter reached the court, Masipa sided with the occupiers, saying the City had failed to fulfil its obligations to find alternative accommodation for squatters who were threatened with eviction. She criticised the City for trying to distance itself from the problem. “This, indeed, is at odds with the Constitution and is tantamount to failure by the City to comply with its constitutional obligations,” she said.
Maroga vs Eskom
In December 2010, Masipa ruled against an R85-million lawsuit that former Eskom chief executive, Jacob Maroga, brought against his previous employees for unlawful dismissal. He asked that he either be reinstated as the utility’s chief executive or be compensated. However, Eskom maintained that Maroga offered to resign and the board accepted his resignation.
According to Masipa, Maroga’s story was contradictory, unreliable and “demonstrably lacking in credence” and she concluded that his version of events was a fabrication. Masipa ordered Maroga to pay the costs of the trial, which included the employment of five counsel.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ and http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com
