Boissie Mbha

Boissie Henry Mbha (born 31 July 1952) is a retired South African judge who served in the Supreme Court of Appeal from June 2014 to August 2022. He was also the chairperson of the Electoral Court from 2018 to 2022, and he acted in the Constitutional Court for a term in 2016. A former attorney, he was appointed to the bench in October 2004 as a judge of the High Court's Gauteng Division.

Early life and education Mbha was born on 31 July 1952 in Johannesburg. He matriculated at the Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto, a township outside Johannesburg, and went on to the University of Fort Hare, where he completed a BJuris in 1981. Thereafter he attended the University of the Witwatersrand, graduating in 1985 with an LLB.

In October 2003, he was appointed as an acting judge in the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa; during the same period, he was a military judge for the South African National Defence Force reserve. He took office in October 2004 at the conclusion of his acting stint. After the interviews, the commission recommended Mbha, Kevin Swain, and Dumisani Zondi for appointment, and President Jacob Zuma accepted the recommendation the following month, appointing Mbha to the Supreme Court of Appeal with effect from 1 June 2014. According to the Mail & Guardian, he was regarded as "a respectable all-rounder" in the court.

Constitutional Court From 1 August to 15 December 2016, Mbha was seconded as an acting judge to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, appointed by President Zuma to fill the seat of Justice Bess Nkabinde. During that period, Mbha wrote the court's majority judgement in City of Cape Town v Aurecon and in Laubscher N.O. v Duplan. The latter, a judgement on intestate succession in permanent same-sex partnerships between unmarried persons, was criticised, including by Pierre de Vos, as promulgating a narrow view of same-sex marriage and for referring to same-sex civil unions as "marriage" in quotation marks. During his interview with the Judicial Service Commission, he was asked about alleged racial tensions among judges at the Supreme Court and was subjected to "difficult" questioning about the separation of powers, during which he argued that judges should not comment on "general social issues" in extrajudicial public forums. After the interviews, Mbha was the only one of the five candidates whom the Judicial Service Commission did not recommend to the president as suitable for elevation to the Constitutional Court; Leona Theron was ultimately appointed to fill the vacancy.

Electoral Court In August 2018, the Judicial Service Commission announced that Mbha was the sole nominee to serve as chairperson of South Africa's Electoral Court. Following an interview with the Judicial Service Commission,

Retirement Mbha retired from the Supreme Court and Electoral Court in August 2022. Later the same month, he served as a member of the high-level observer mission, commissioned by the Africa Judges and Jurists Forum and chaired by Chande Othman, which travelled to the Kenyan Supreme Court in Nairobi, Kenya to observe controversial litigation on the 2022 Kenyan presidential election.

Personal life Described by Supreme Court President Lex Mpati as "sort of a fitness fanatic", Mbha has run the Comrades Marathon six times and has a black belt in karate. He is married to Nikiwe Mbha, with whom he has three children.