Personal details

10 January 1968, Johannesburg

Married Three children

Education

• Matric: Westerford High School, Cape Town
• B.A: University of Cape Town (1988)
• LLB: University of Cape Town (1991)
• LLM: University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA (summa cum laude) (1997)

Professional history

• Candidate Attorney and Attorney: Chennells Albertyn, Stellenbosch: 1992-1995.
• Deputy Director Mediation: Independent Electoral Commission, Western Cape - elections 1994.
• Legal Researcher: African National Congress Constitutional Commission in Parliament 1995 -1996.
• Attorney: Legal Resources Centre Constitutional Litigation Unit, Johannesburg 1996 – 1997
• Commissioner: Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration, Johannesburg 1997 – 2000.
• Attorney: Haffegee Roskam Savage Attorneys 2000 - 2008.
• Director: Bowman Gilfillan 2008 - 2012.
• Arbitrator and mediator on dispute resolution panels including IMSSA, AMSSA, Tokiso, PSCBC, PHWSBC, ELRC, SSSBC, CCMA variously from 1994 - 2012
• Acting Judge: Labour Court 4th term 2011
• Acting Judge: Western Cape High Court 4th term 2012 – end 4th term 2014
• Judge: Western Cape High Court 2015 to date
• Acting Judge: Labour Appeal Court 2015 to date.
• Acting Judge: Competition Appeal Court: February 2022 to date.
• Acting Judge: Supreme Court of Appeal: 1 April 2022 – 31 May 2022.

Other Activities

• Board Member: Southern African Legal Information Institute (SAFLII) 2004 to date
• Trustee: Constitutional Court Trust until 2019
• Member of South African Society for Labour Law to date.

Personal details

12 April 1962, Port Elizabeth

Married to Therese Boulle

Three children

Education

• Matriculated at St Patrick’s Marist Brothers College, Port Elizabeth
• BA – University of Cape Town
• LLB – University of Cape Town

Professional history

• Articles of Clerkship, Brereton & Co, 1989
• Advocate, Eastern Cape Bar, Port Elizabeth, 1990 - 1996
• National Director Investigations Unit, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1996 - 1997
• Advocate, Eastern Cape Bar, Port Elizabeth, 1998 - 2011
• Served as an Acting Judge in the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court for periods during 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
• Acting Judge, Supreme Court of Appeal: 1 June 2020 - 30 November 2020; 1 December 2020 - 31 May 2021; 1 June - 30 September 2022.
• Judge; Supreme Court of Appeal: 1 December 2022.

Publications, Awards, Honours and Other Activities

• ‘Human Rights Litigation’ in Introduction to Human Rights Law (2ed), A Govindjee (ed), 2016 LexisNexis
• ‘Rights Activism as a Key to Transformative Jurisprudence’ in South Africa’s Constitution at 21, J Meiring (ed), 2017 Penguin Random House
• ‘Ethics as a Driver of Transformation of the Legal Profession’, SAJEJ, Vol 2, Issue 1, (2019)
• ‘Covid 19 and the Courts: Justice in Lockdown’ (2020) 33.2 Advocate 34 (August 2020).

Activities

• Instructor in Constitutional Litigation: LSSA Practical Legal School 1998 – 2005
• Pupilage Coordinator (Eastern Cape) 2004 – 2006
• Independent Trial Observer obo International Bar Association, Zimbabwe, 2006
• Chairperson, Port Elizabeth Society of Advocates 2006 – 2008
• Chairperson, Eastern Cape Society of Advocates 2007
• Pupilage Coordinator for General Council of the Bar 2009 - 2011
• Faculty Advisory Board for the Review of the LLB Curriculum, Nelson Mandela University 2009 – 2011
• External Examiner in Constitutional and Administrative Law, Rhodes University, 1998 to present
• Adjunct Professor in Public Law, Nelson Mandela University 2008 – to present
• Member of the Faculty of Advocacy Trainers, General Council of the Bar
• Mediation Training for South African Judges, Utah United States of America, October 2019 hosted by University of Utah and Brigham Young University
• Webinar on Judicial Responses to Covid 19 Pandemic, hosted by Nelson Mandela University, May 2020
• Access to Justice and Online Courts, panel hosted by Hans Seidel Foundation and UCT Democratic Governance and Rights Unit, April 2021
• Instructor on SAJEI training seminars for judicial officers on Virtual Courts, Motion Court Procedure and Mediation – 2020, 2021 and 2022
• The Future of Judicial Digital Transformation in Africa and Adoption of All Technology for Automated Judicial Decision Making, African Judges Panel During Africa Legal Innovation Week 2022, Hosted by The Lawyers Hub, Kenya, November 2022.

Abbreviated Biography – Acting Justice Opperman J

Judge Ingrid Opperman qualified in 1988 with a B.Com LLB from the University of Johannesburg. From 1985 to 1986 she was the chairwoman of the UJ Law Society.

She spent a year after she qualified as a public prosecutor and then in 1990, commenced pupillage at the Johannesburg Society of Advocates.

The early days of her practice were dedicated mainly to criminal defence work for members of communities in the Northern Cape engaged in resistance to the apartheid state. She worked on defending those accused of public violence, intimidation and related charges. They arose from the efforts of those communities to resist the structures of the apartheid state in its dying days. She also did work in Western Gauteng, primarily in Carletonville, representing in inquests, families who had lost children in police custody. During this time she was a member of Lawyers for Human Rights.

During 1994 her practice shifted to mainly general commercial law with a fair amount of asset-finance based litigation for banks.

She married Les Morison, now an SC, and they have two daughters. Senior counsel status was conferred upon her on 16 September 2014 whereafter, as is the tradition at the bar, she started taking acting appointments. She came to appreciate the challenges and rewards of judicial office in that time and decided to avail herself for appointment as a permanent judge of the High Court of South Africa and was appointed as such during January 2017. She sees judicial office as an opportunity to serve her country and in particular, to apply the law to address injustices both past and present.

Acting Justice Nambitha Dambuza

Nambitha Dambuza is a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal, South Africa, which is located in Bloemfontein in the Free State Province. She has served as a judge of that court for six years. Prior to that she was a judge of the High Cout in the Eastern Cape Province for eleven years. During the same period she was a judge of the Competition Appeal Court and has previously served as Acting Judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

Her other positions include: Chairperson of the Rules Board for the Courts of Law in South Africa; visiting Professor at the Rhodes University Faculty of Law, in Makhanda; South Africa, Chairperson of the Nelson Mandela University Council, South Africa; Judicial Educator with the South African Judiciary; Board member of the Global Judicial Institute on the Environment; and Trustee of the Heatherbank Farm School in Gqeberha, South Africa.

Previous positions include: member of the Judicial Conduct Committee of the Judicial Service Commission, South Africa; council member of the South African Judicial Education Institute (SAJEI); convenor of the New Judges Orientation Seminar, South African Judiciary; Chairperson of the African Judicial Education Network on Environmental Law (Ajenel); and Chairperson of the Walter Sisulu University Council, South Africa.