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The Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) is deeply saddened by the news of the death of Free State High Court Judge Jake Moloi, as advised by Judge President Mahube Molemela on Friday.

The late Judge Moloi was Co-Chairperson of the LSSA in 1999 to 2000. ‘Judge Moloi, then President of the Black Lawyers Association (BLA), signed the constitution of the LSSA on behalf of the BLA when the LSSA was established in March 1998.

He was one of the persons who was instrumental in negotiations which brought the six constituent members of the LSSA – the four statutory provincial law societies, the BLA and the National Association of Democratic Lawyers – together to establish the LSSA as a representative body for the attorneys’ profession post-1994,’ say LSSA Co-Chairpersons David Bekker and Walid Brown.

After serving in the Department of Justice as interpreter, prosecutor and magistrate, he joined law firm Schoeman & Kellerman in Welkom as a candidate attorney.

In 1979 he became the Free State’s first black attorney, opening his own practice, Jake Moloi & Partners, where he was a practising attorney until 1998. In 1996 he became a member of the Amnesty Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  He was President of the Black Lawyers Association from 1997 to 2001

With LLM degrees in Human Rights and International Trade Law, Judge Moloi was contracted by the European Union in Brussels to assist in regulating and improving international trade relations from 2003 to 2006. Upon his return to South Arica, he served as an acting judge on the Free State, Northern and Western Cape Benches for several terms in 2008 and 2009, and was appointed a permanent judge in the Free State Division of the High Court in 2009.

The LSSA is deeply saddened at the loss of this giant of the legal profession who was so instrumental in unifying attorneys in this country. The LSSA wishes to uphold his memory by continuing to act in the interests of the profession.

We extend the sincere condolences of the attorneys’ profession to Judge Moloi’s family and friends, and to his fellow judges on the Free State Bench.

Issued by Law Society of South Africa