Mandlakayise John Hlophe dedicated his life to the legal profession with a singular vision to fight injustice. An activist scholar who graduated with a PhD in Law from Cambridge University, he developed into a prolific academic whose brilliance could not be ignored. At the dawn of the so-called democratic era, PresidentMandela appointed him to the bench at age 35, making him the youngest judge ever appointed at the time. He impressed as a scholarly judge and within five years had risen to the judge president of what was a predominantly white Western Capebench and legal profession.
He fought against racism in the Cape bench and legal profession, earning himself many enemies in the process. After sixteen years of being tried and having his character and standing as a judge placed under pervasive scrutiny, he was summarily removed from the bench having served for nearly thirty years. However, he continues to be aformidable campaigner for the elimination of racism in the legal profession and the transformation and decolonisation of South Africa’s legal and justice systems for the benefit of African people.
Despite his judicial career coming to a premature end, the activism he has pursued throughout that career has not stopped. It continues on a different platform; a more public and less restrained platform where his message will probably reach farther than it has before