Johannesburg:
Narandran ‘Jody’ Kollapen, who is of Indian descent, has been appointed to South Africa’s highest judicial bench, the Constitutional Court.
President Cyril Ramaphosa Friday announced the appointment of 64-year-old Kollapen and Rammaka Steven Mathopo as the latest additions to the Constitutional Court after a lengthy process of public interviews.
Kollapen and Mathopo were among the five candidates recommended to Ramaphosa in October of this year for the two vacancies.
Both will take office on January 1, 2022.
Kollapen had been interviewed twice before for appointment to the Constitutional Court, but was then unsuccessful, despite serving two terms as acting judge of the same institution.
The presidency said Kollapen and Mathopo have illustrious careers in the legal profession and the judiciary.
Kollapen, who has now been lifted from his position as Supreme Court Justice, began his law practice in 1982, largely focusing on public interest work. He joined Lawyers for Human Rights in 1993 and became its national director in 1995, holding it until the end of 1996.
In 1997 he took up a position as Commissioner of the South African Human Rights Commission and chaired the Commission for seven years from 2002 to 2009. In April he was appointed chairman of the South African Commission on Legal Reform. 2016.
Kollapen is a member of the structures of numerous NGOs and civil society organizations, including the Legal Resources Center, the Foundation for Human Rights and Laudium Care Services for the Aged.
He has also been invited to speak on human rights issues around the world, including at the United Nations and Harvard University.
He received an honorary doctorate from the Durban University of Technology; the Turquoise Harmony Institute Prize for his contribution to society in the field of law and human rights; and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Congress of Business and Economics, which was born out of the former Transvaal Indian Congress from the time Mahatma Gandhi was in South Africa.
In 2010, as acting judge of the Constitutional Court, Kollapen made a strong statement about cultural and national identity as a keynote speaker at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the religious organization Siva Gnana Sabhay in Lenasia.
Kollapen said there was no need to shy away from the unique Indian identity, culture and religion brought to South Africa by the first indentured laborers 150 years earlier, but that South Africans of Indian descent should use this to represent the rainbow nation as citizens. to build up the country.
Kollapen’s mother was one of the women in the historic 1956 protest march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of apartheid-era government, against discriminatory laws. She was arrested and jailed twice for her participation in passive resistance protests.
Kollapen often recalled how his mother had told him at the time that she was pregnant with him.