SA Chief Justice Mogoeng pays tribute to retiring deputy Moseneke
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng on Friday paid tribute to struggle stalwart and Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke for his sacrifice in fighting for freedom and later making his way to the highest court of the country.
The Constitutional Court marked Moseneke’s retirement from the judiciary. He is longest serving deputy chief justice, after serving under three chief justices.
Mogoeng said Moseneke’s life should be an inspiration to South Africans.
“It is difficult to know what to say and what lessons to draw from a life so well lived. But one of the most profound lessons to draw from, is his life,” Mogoeng told a packed Constitutional Court.
Mogoeng said Moseneke was a great leader from whose life each and every South African should learn from. Moseneke was overlooked for the chief justice position three times, but he took it in his stride, Mogoeng said.
“He went through so much and was unquestionably qualified and experienced to be the next chief justice. He knew it too, that he was qualified and experienced to take over,” said Mogoeng.
“I was impressed by what he said regarding that issue, that it is an honour for him to become a judge, a judge of a high court and more so, to become a deputy chief justice.”
Moseneke, who was a Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) activist, was arrested and convicted at the age of 14 for his political activities. He was sent to Robben Island and was the youngest prisoner there at the time.
Mogoeng praised him for not being a bitter man after his suffering when he came out of prison.
“He returned to Pretoria, and sharpened his legal skills. He worked in the same Pretoria bar that had refused to admit him. In the words of an American: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’. Let us be selfless, let us be content with the little we have, knowing that there are more who go to bed without having eaten.”
Various persons from the legal profession also paid tribute to Moseneke, including Dumisa Ntsebeza, chairperson of Advocates for Transformation, who told the full bench of the highest court that the occasion was like no other.
“His has been a life lived in full…from a political rebel to a justice in this court. He had battles against apartheid even after his release from prison, when the then Transvaal law society refused to admit him on the basis that he was not a South African, but a resident of [former homeland] Bophuthatswana…but he soldiered through.”
Among the guests in the public gallery were Moseneke’s mother, 90-year-old Karabo Moseneke, and former South African presidents Kgalema Motlanthe and Thabo Mbeki. - ANA