John Gilbert Kotzé

Sir John Gilbert Kotzé KC (5 November 1849 – 1 April 1940) was a South African jurist.

Early life Kotzé was born in Cape Town and was given the Christian names of Johannes Gysbert Blanckenberg, but he used the anglicized form, John Gilbert. He was educated at Tot Nut van het Algemeen and the South African College in Cape Town. His brother, Rev J.J. Kotzé (older by 17 years), studied for the Church. It was recorded he was a distinguished student at Utrecht, where he graduated summa cum laude and shared the distinction of being the best classical scholar at the university. Kotzé became a barrister of the Inner Temple and practised in Cape Town and Grahamstown from 1874 to 76.

Judicial career Kotzé was appointed judge of the High Court of the Transvaal in 1877, becoming Chief Justice in 1881. He, together with the rest of the High Court, was unceremoniously dismissed by Paul Kruger following a dispute over the Testing Rights issue. Kotze had stood in 1893 as a rival to Kruger in the presidential elections and was seen by Kruger as his long term political rival. Kruger, on this particular occasion, was enraged at the judgement of the High Court in the case of Brown v. Leyds and he dismissed Chief Justice Kotzé in 1898 as President Kruger held his own opinion on the case outcome. The circumstances surrounding this judgement are worth exploring as they are illustrative of the Legal and general state of public administration in the Transvaal at the time during the British Rule and the Volksraad's Constitution, a "document born of political compromise between warring factions rather than any kind of coherent legal document" . The Constitution was seen as "so vague and obscure in so many areas that it had never been treated with the seriousness and respect which such a document usually merits.

Kruger's action was widely seen as unwarranted interference with the independence of the judiciary." The Second Boer War soon followed in 1899, with every Boer town in the hands of the British, "President Kruger fled/went in exile in the Netherlands". Over 26,000 women and children were to perish in the War's concentration camps.

In 1898 Kotzé resumed legal practice in Pretoria. He was appointed Attorney-General of Southern Rhodesia in 1900, and took silk as King's Counsel in April 1902. He was appointed judge of the Eastern Districts Court of the Cape Colony in 1903, he became Judge-President of that division in 1904. He was then appointed judge of the Supreme Court of the Cape Provincial Division in 1913, becoming Judge-President in 1920. When Justice Christian Maasdorp retired in 1922, Kotzé became Judge of Appeal, starting in 1922 until his retirement in 1927. To date, Books of "Latin and High Dutch of the Roman-Dutch old authorities is occasionally still used, as at times it is necessary for a modern judge to delve into these old authorities to search for the origin and scope of an otherwise obscure legal rule or doctrine."

Honours and awards Kotzé was knighted in February 1917.

Judge Kotzé's personal book collection of over 1500 books, is still to date referred to and used by the Supreme Court of Appeal Judges. It is said of Kotzé: "A noted scholar, a man of immense learning and a collector of books, his collection of 1556 titles, bought by the government in 1927 for £800, formed the nucleus of the then fledgling library of the Appellate Division, and is still retained as a separate collection." A bust of Kotzé, by E Grace Wheatley, is located with the collection.