Lex Mpati

Lex Mpati (born 5 September 1949) is a South African retired judge who was the President of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa from August 2008 to May 2016. He was appointed to the bench in February 1997 as a judge of the Eastern Cape Division and he joined the Supreme Court as a puisne judge in December 2000. Before his elevation to the presidency, he was the Supreme Court's first Deputy President from 2003 to 2008. He was also an acting judge in the Constitutional Court in 2007.

Born in Durban, Mpati grew up in the Eastern Cape, spending his childhood in Fort Beaufort and his adolescence in Grahamstown. He entered legal practice as an attorney in 1985 and was admitted as an advocate in 1989. In 1996, during a three-year stint at the Legal Resources Centre, he was appointed as Senior Counsel. Since 2013, he has been the chancellor of Rhodes University, his alma mater.

Early life and education Mpati was born on 5 September 1949 in Durban in the former Natal Province. However, during his infancy, his family moved to a farm in Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape, the hometown of his maternal grandparents. He attended primary school at St Joseph’s Catholic School in Fort Beaufort, walking five kilometres to school daily and herding cattle in the morning and evenings.

Mpati's first job out of high school was as a petrol attendant at Albany Auto Services, a petrol station on Beaufort Street in Grahamstown, where he worked until 1970.

Over the next decade, Mpati worked as a furniture salesman and as a bartender at the Settler's Inn Motel.

Legal career Mpati had begun clerking for a law firm in Grahamstown during his final year of law school, and he stayed with the firm after graduation to complete his articles of clerkship. Still acting as an appellate judge at that time, he was considered a frontrunner.

After its hearings, the Judicial Service Commission recommended Mpati and three others (Edwin Cameron, Ian Farlam, and Mahomed Navsa) for appointment, and their appointments were confirmed by President Thabo Mbeki at the end of the month. Mpati became the first black judge to sit permanently in the Supreme Court.

Deputy presidency and presidency In November 2002, President Mbeki appointed Mpati as Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal; he deputised Judge President Craig Howie, who was appointed at the same time. and, indeed, he succeeded Howie on 15 August 2008.

Constitutional Court Mpati was an acting judge in the Constitutional Court of South Africa from 1 June to 30 November 2007. but Mogoeng Mogoeng was ultimately nominated instead.

Retirement Mpati retired from the judiciary in May 2016, and Mandisa Maya succeeded him as Supreme Court President shortly thereafter.

In October 2018, President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Mpati as the chairperson of a commission of inquiry into allegations of impropriety regarding the Public Investment Corporation (best known as the PIC Commission). He led a three-member panel which also included Gill Marcus and Emmanuel Lediga and which opened its hearings in January 2019.

In November 2022, he was appointed to lead an independent investigation into alleged misgovernance at the University of Cape Town during the tenure of vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng.

Honours and awards Mpati holds two honorary LLDs, one awarded by Rhodes University in 2004 and the other awarded by Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2011. he was inaugurated as the chancellor of his alma mater, succeeding Jakes Gerwel, who had died in late 2012.

Personal life In 1973 in Grahamstown, Mpati met and married Mireille Nontobeko, who trained as a teacher and later as a nurse.

Asked in 2009 about his race, Mpati joked that he was " 'n tussen" (Afrikaans for "an in-between"), explaining, "I grew up in that circumstance when I'm amongst coloured people, they would say I am an African, and when I’m in an African group, they’ll say you’re a coloured."