Keoagile Elias Matojane (born 9 September 1960) is a South African

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

of the Supreme Court of Appeal. Formerly an attorney, he was a judge of the

Gauteng High Court The Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law which has general jurisdiction over the South African province of Gauteng and the eastern part of North West province. The main seat of the division is at Pretoria, ...

from December 2009 until December 2022, when he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Early life and education

Matojane was born on 9 September 1960 in

Soweto Soweto () is a Township (South Africa), township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western T ...

. He matriculated from Madibane High School in Soweto in 1981 and attended the

University of Zululand The University of Zululand or UNIZULU is a comprehensive tertiary educational institution north of the uThukela River in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The university has established partnerships with schools in the United States and Europe suc ...

, where he completed a BProc in 1986 and an

LLB A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

in 1988. Later, he completed two LLMs, one at the

Rand Afrikaans University The Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) (Afrikaans: ''Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit'') was a prominent South African institution of higher education and research that served the greater Johannesburg area and surroundings from 1967 to 2004. It ha ...

in 1995 and another at the

University of South Africa The University of South Africa (UNISA) is the largest university system in South Africa by enrollment. It attracts a third of all higher education students in South Africa. Through various colleges and affiliates, UNISA has over 400,000 student ...

in 2007, and he also holds a diploma in

company law Corporate law (also known as company law or enterprise law) is the body of law governing the rights, relations, and conduct of persons, companies, organizations and businesses. The term refers to the legal practice of law relating to corp ...

from the University of Johannesburg and a diploma in

trial advocacy Trial advocacy is the branch of knowledge concerned with making attorneys and other advocates more effective in trial proceedings. Trial advocacy is an essential trade skill for litigators and is taught in law schools and continuing legal educati ...

from the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

Career as an attorney

Matojane was admitted as an attorney in 1991 and practiced for nearly two decades. He was additionally admitted as a

conveyancer In most Commonwealth countries, a conveyancer is a specialist lawyer who specialises in the legal aspects of buying and selling real property, or conveyancing. A conveyancer can also be (but need not be) a solicitor, licensed conveyancer, or ...

in 2000. At an advanced stage of his private practice, he was invited to serve as an acting judge in the

High Court of South Africa The High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law in South Africa. It is divided into nine provinces of South Africa, provincial divisions, some of which sit in more than one location. Each High Court division has general jurisdiction ov ...

, first in the

Cape High Court The Western Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa (previously named the Cape Provincial Division and the Western Cape High Court, and commonly known as the Cape High Court) is a superior court of law with general jurisdiction over the ...

between 2007 and 2008 and then in the

South Gauteng High Court The Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa is a superior court, superior court of law which has general jurisdiction over the South African province of Gauteng and the eastern part of North West (South African province), North West pro ...

in 2009.

Gauteng High Court: 2009–2022

In November 2009, President

Jacob Zuma Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan names Nxamalala and Msholozi. Zuma was a for ...

announced that Matojane would join the Gauteng High Court permanently with effect from 12 December 2009. He was additionally appointed as a judge in the

Land Claims Court Land court or land claims court is a type of court which is charged with dealings over cases involving land titles and for disputes between landlords and tenants relating to agricultural tenancies. The exact field of jurisdiction varies by country ...

in 2014, and he was an acting judge in the Competition Appeals Court in 2020. He also served as an acting judge in both higher courts – in the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...

on one occasion in 2015 and in the Supreme Court of Appeal on three occasions between April 2020 and September 2022 – as well as in the Constitutional Court of Lesotho in 2017. Finally, he was the acting judge president of the Land Claims Court in 2014 and the acting deputy judge president of the South Gauteng High Court in 2020.

Prominent cases

In Gauteng, Matojane presided in several prominent or politically sensitive matters. In 2015, he overturned the suspension of Shadrack Sibiya from his position at the

Hawks Hawks are bird of prey, birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. They are very widely distributed and are found on all continents, except Antarctica. The subfamily Accipitrinae includes goshawks, sparrowhawks, sharp-shinned hawks, and othe ...

, finding that Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza was "biased and dishonest". In 2018, he ruled against two non-profit organisations – the

South African History Archive The South African History Archive Trust, better known as SAHA, is an independent archive dedicated to documenting, supporting and promoting greater awareness of past and contemporary struggles for justice through Archival science, archival practic ...

and Open Secrets – which had brought an application in terms of the

Promotion of Access to Information Act The Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (or PAIA; Act No. 2 of 2000) is a freedom of information law in South Africa. It gives the constitutional right of access to any information held by the State and any information held by private b ...

, seeking to compel the

South African Reserve Bank The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is the central bank of South Africa. It was established in 1921 after Parliament passed an act, the "Currency and Bank Act of 10 August 1920", as a direct result of the abnormal monetary and financial condi ...

to provide information about

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

-era white-collar crimes. The following year, he ordered the

Economic Freedom Fighters The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is a South African communist and black nationalist political party. It was founded by expelled former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema, and his allies, on 26 July 20 ...

(EFF) to pay R500,000 in damages to

Trevor Manuel Trevor Andrew Manuel (born 31 January 1956) is a retired South African politician and former anti-apartheid activist who served in the cabinet of South Africa between 1994 and 2014. He was the South African Department of Finance, Minister of ...

for making defamatory and false statements about Manuel; the defamation finding was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeal, although the appellate court referred the determination of damages to oral hearings. Most prominently, in December 2021, Matojane overturned the decision of the National Commissioner for Correctional Services to grant

medical parole Compassionate release is a process by which inmates in criminal justice systems may be eligible for immediate early release on grounds of "particularly extraordinary or compelling circumstances which could not reasonably have been foreseen by t ...

to former President

, who had been imprisoned for

contempt of court Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the co ...

. Matojane said that the Commissioner,

Arthur Fraser Arthur Fraser is a South African civil servant and former intelligence operative who was head of the State Security Agency from 2016 to 2018 and National Commissioner for Correctional Services from 2018 to 2021. He was previously an anti-apartheid ...

, had acted irrationally and in violation of the Correctional Services Act. The Supreme Court of Appeal upheld this decision, though it disagreed with Matojane's declaratory order that Zuma's time on parole should not be considered towards the fulfilment of his sentence. In 2020, during the Democratic Alliance's unsuccessful challenge to the legality of the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa, Matojane wrote a dissenting judgement in which he argued that it was unconstitutional for the Disaster Management Act to grant the executive branch the power to enforce such a lockdown indefinitely.

2021 JSC interview

In April 2021, the Judicial Service Commission shortlisted and interviewed Matojane as a candidate for permanent appointment to the Supreme Court of Appeal. During the interviews, Matojane was questioned about his reasoning in the EFF's defamation case by the EFF's own leader, politician

Julius Malema Julius Sello Malema (born 3 March 1981) is a South African politician. He is the founder and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a communist political party known for the red berets and military-style outfits worn by its members. Be ...

, who served on the commission. The Judicial Service Commission did not recommend Matojane for appointment, but the non-profit Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution laid a formal complaint against Malema with

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. In December, Parliament's

Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interest The Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interest is a joint committee of the Parliament of South Africa that deals with the ethical conduct of Members of Parliament and the disclosure of their financial interests. Its primary function is to p ...

s found that Malema's questioning of Matojane breached the parliamentary ethics code insofar as Malema used the platform of the interviews to promote "his personal interests"; the Committee recommended that Malema should be sanctioned and forced to apologise to Motojane and to the Judicial Service Commission. Malema challenged the committee's report in court.

Supreme Court of Appeal: 2022–present

In October 2022, Matojane was shortlisted again for one of five new vacancies at the Supreme Court of Appeal. During the Judicial Service Commission's interviews, Malema asked Matojane obliquely about his ruling on Zuma's parole, the appeal of which was still pending; Matojane refused to answer and ended the interview with a plea to the commission to "bear in mind that we are sitting judges. I may be in court tomorrow and, if I am to avail myself for this process and get humiliated, what are we saying to the parties who are appearing before us?" The Judicial Service Commission recommended Matojane for appointment, and he joined the bench on 1 December 2022.

Personal life

He is married to Rachel Matojane and has three children.