Cape Town - President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed UWC alumnus Justice Steven Arnold Majiedt to the Constitutional Court.
On Wednesday, the honour was bestowed on the Kenhardt native, born in December 1960 in the Northern Cape.
Justice Majiedt matriculated at the William Pescod High School in Kimberley in 1978 and started studying at UWC in 1979, obtaining his BA (Law) degree in 1981. He completed his LLB degree in 1983.
Justice Majiedt began his work as an advocate at the Cape Bar in 1984. He recalled that he had the privilege and honour to practise at the Cape Bar with the doyen of human rights lawyers - Dullah Omar - Omar’s chambers being only two doors away from Justice Majiedt’s, when he started out.
As one of the first trustees of the then Community Law Centre at UWC, Justice Majiedt later proposed Omar to serve as director of the centre, which now carries his name.
Practising law for 12 years in Cape Town (1984 to 1995), Justice Majiedt went on to serve as the chief provincial state law adviser in the office of the premier in the Northern Cape from 1996 to 1999.
He was appointed as acting judge in the Kimberley High Court in March 2000, and appointed permanently as judge in the same court in May 2000, a position which he held until 2010.
He served as acting justice of the Constitutional Court from January to May 2014. Justice Majiedt has also served on a number of boards, councils, foundations, institutes, commissions and committees.
“UWC taught me the fundamental values of humaneness, equality and respect for all people,” he said. “It inculcated in me the mindset of justice for all and of standing up for the rights of the most downtrodden.
“My UWC experiences, particularly politically, were the foundation for my later involvement in a multitude of human rights and public interest cases as a lawyer during the turbulent mid-1980s to early 1990s.
“I have strived to let this paradigm infuse my work as a judge,” Justice Majiedt said.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/ConCourtSA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ConCourtSA , today requested that the #JSC consider him strictly on merit. If not, he doesn’t want the job, pic.twitter.com/5ZmnsothOb
— R. Candy (@rcandy16)