Academic and former Constitutional Court Justice Yvonne Mokgoro has died. Image: Supplied.
Academic and former ConCourt Justice Yvonne Mokgoro dies
One of the first black female members of the judiciary in the country’s first democratic government Yvonne Mokgoro has died.
Academic and former Constitutional Court Justice Yvonne Mokgoro has died. Image: Supplied.
Former Constitutional Court Justice Yvonne Mokgoro has died.
Mokgoro died at a hospital in Johannesburg, Gauteng on Thursday, 9 May.
YVONNE MOKGORO DIES
According to Sunday World Mokgoro was involved in a car accident in April 2023. This led to several health setbacks which forced her to step back from public engagements.
The 74-year-old reportedly suffered multiple injuries after the car in which she was travelling was hit by a truck between Warrenton and Kimberley in the Northern Cape.
Her son Ithateng Mokgoro said their family and the country has lost a principled servant whose commitment will continue to shape the society.
“We remain grateful to all those who gave her support over the past difficult months, and we ask them to continue to hold the family in their thoughts and prayers,” Ithateng said.
FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE LATE JUDGE
- Mokgoro was born in 1950 in Galeshewe, near Kimberley in the Northern Cape, as the second child of working-class parents.
- She finished high school at the local St Boniface High School in 1970. She then obtained an undergraduate (B Luris) degree at the then University of Bophuthatswana, a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) two years later, and a Master of Laws (LLM) in 1987. She also studied at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA, earning a second LLM degree in 1990.
- Yvonne Mokgoro’s journey included working as a nursing assistant, a retail salesperson, and a clerk in the Department of Justice of the erstwhile nominally independent Bophuthatswana.
- The former Constitutional Court judge was also a maintenance officer and public prosecutor in the then Mmabatho magistrate court. She later became an associate professor of law at the University of Bophuthatswana (now North-West University) and the University of the Western Cape.
- Mokgoro served on the Constitutional Court from its democratic inception in 1994 until her retirement in 2009. She was one of the first black members of the judiciary in the country’s first democratic government.
