UFH chancellor sets bar
Ntsebeza to focus on challenges
LEGAL giant Dumisa Ntsebeza, who was once expelled from the University of Fort Hare for being involved in student politics, has now returned to the university as its chancellor.
In an interview with the Saturday Dispatch yesterday, Ntsebeza said even though his position was “ceremonial”, he hoped to influence interaction to address the challenges faced by the university community.
“The challenges faced by universities such as the call for free education and the decolonisation of universities are extreme.
“I would like to call for a closer look and an open debate on these challenges,” he said.
Ntsebeza’s appointment received the nod from the university’s council on January 27, following an inclusive stakeholder process.
Recalling the events that led to his expulsion, Ntsebeza said as a young political activist he was involved in a “cat operation” when seven of them splashed the university’s walls with slogans that disapproved of the professors at the time.
“I was detained for a terrorism act and put into solitary confinement.
“The charges were later reduced to malicious damage and we were fined R60.
“The consequences were dire, I lost my scholarship but through the Christian community I was able to complete my studies and now I return to the same university to take up a ceremonial position,” said Ntsebeza.
The university also appointed Professor Sakhela Buhlungu as vice-chancellor and rector recently.
UFH spokesman, Mawande Mrashula, said: “The university prides itself for having on its list of father figures the likes of Makhenkesi Stofile, Justice Thembile Skweyiya, Govan Mbeki, Sibusiso Bhengu, Danisa Baloyi and Oliver Tambo.”
Ntsebeza was admitted as an attorney in 1984, practicing in the Eastern Cape, mainly in the area of human rights.
He represented a number of political prisoners throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, and in 1995 was appointed as one of the commissioners in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
He is a founder of the South African National Association of Democratic Lawyers and served as its president. He also served as president of South Africa’s Black Lawyers Association.
In 2000, he was called to the bar in Cape Town, where he took Silk in 2005, becoming the first black African to be conferred Silk status in the history of the Cape Bar.
He has practiced in the Johannesburg Bar since 2008. He has a passion for Constitutional and Administrative Law, Labour Law, Mining Law and Land Law.
He also serves as a member and the spokesman of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
Ntsebeza has also sat as a judge in various divisions of the High Court of South Africa – in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, and in all the Labour Courts.
Since October 2012, he has represented before the Marikana Commission of Inquiry, 36 families of striking miners who were killed by the police at Marikana in August 2012. — arethal@dispatch.co.za