Retired Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo has been thrust into the spotlight again, having chaired the Section 89 Panel into the Phala Phala matter, which sees President Cyril Ramaphosa facing the biggest threat to his presidency and legacy.

Ngcobo was born in Durban in March 1953, and went on to get a BProc degree from the University of Zululand, graduating in 1976, an LLB from the University of Natal, graduating in 1985, and an LLM from Harvard Law School. He attended Harvard on a Fulbright scholarship in the mid-1980s.

He was also detained by the apartheid authorities in 1976 and 1977 in the aftermath of the 1976 student uprising.

He was admitted as an attorney in 1981 and worked for a variety of law firms before beginning work for the Legal Resources Centre in Durban in 1982.

While studying in the United States (US) he also acted as a law clerk and research associate for an American judge, Leon Higginbotham.

He returned to South Africa in 1988 and became director of a legal aid clinic at the University of Natal in Durban.

He then returned to the US in 1989, working as an attorney in Philadelphia. He came back to South Africa in 1992, where he practised as an advocate in Durban.

Ngcobo was appointed to the Cape Provincial Division of the Supreme Court in 1996, later served on the Labour Appeal Court, and also sat on the Amnesty Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Ngcobo joined the Constitutional Court in 1999 and became Chief Justice a decade later. His judicial legacy is strongly associated with participatory democracy and the constitutional duty of public institutions to take citizens seriously. In the landmark Doctors for Life case, Ngcobo wrote for the majority, holding that public involvement is a material part of the law-making process and that failure to facilitate it can render legislation invalid.

Ngcobo only served as Chief Justice for two years, resigning in 2011, after President Jacob Zuma had tried to extend Ngcobo’s term by five years. However, the extension was challenged by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, on the grounds of unconstitutionality. Ngcobo chose to resign rather than accept the extension to protect the integrity of the Constitutional Court.

After leaving the bench, Ngcobo remained a respected legal figure. He later chaired the independent Section 89 Panel that considered the Phala Phala matter involving President Cyril Ramaphosa, alongside retired Judge Thokozile Masipa and advocate Mahlape Sello.

Ngcobo’s career marks him out as one of the architects of South Africa’s constitutional era. From public interest law and legal aid work to the Constitutional Court and the office of Chief Justice, he built a reputation for independence, restraint, and seriousness about the rule of law. His judgments helped define the duties of democratic institutions, while his conduct during the attempted extension of his term showed an instinct to place the integrity of the court above personal office. It is that record, rather than any political alignment, that gave weight to his leadership of the Phala Phala panel.