MBOMBELA – On Tuesday August 1, Judge Malesela Francis Legodi will start his service as the Mpumalanga High Court’s first judge president.
This born-and-bred plattelander’s career was launched in the Lowveld 30 years ago.
“I am glad to be back for my last lap of service,” he tells Lowvelder.
His open, honest face exudes calm. He speaks about his life and career with a content expression.
“It is a great honour,” he says about being endorsed for the position by the Judicial Service Committee and the president, Jacob Zuma. Although his wife and adult children are still in Gauteng, he travels between cities to accommodate both his family and job.
Due to his wife having to work in Gauteng until the end of the year, she will only join him in the Lowveld then. Legodi smiles spontaneously when talking about her. Their 36-year-old daughter is an electrical engineer, their 32-year-old son a graphic designer and the youngest a 20-year-old law student.
Legodi has walked a difficult road to where he is today. “I grew up in the township of Ga-Maja near Polokwane in Limpopo as the second youngest sibling of eight,” he says. “I studied law at the University of the North (now the University of Limpopo) in 1976.”
After completing his articles with former Pretoria High Court judge president, Bernard Ngoepe in Polokwane, he moved to the Lowveld.
In 1986 Legodi joined Dr Mathews Phosa and Phineas Mojapelo at Mojapelo & Partners, Mpumalanga’s first-ever black legal practice. Mojapelo is the deputy judge president of the South Gauteng High Court.
In 1987 Legodi started his own practice in Bushbuckridge. Faced with Afrikaans-only witnesses in court, he learned the language in six months.
In 2004 he was admitted to the judiciary and started acting as a judge of the High Court of South Africa in the busiest, largest High Court in the country, the Gauteng Division. Last year the first Civil High Court in Mpumalanga was established and Legodi would travel here regularly to assist.
For the first two weeks of every month, the court sat in Middelburg. During that time, a Mbombela courtroom was used for High Court cases. For the next two weeks, the two would swap. Yet the demand would soon require full-time courts.
“We now have a Civil Circuit High Court judge in the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court building at all times. The Criminal High Court functions daily,” he explains.
Legodi’s devotion to justice transpires when he speaks about the law. Access to justice is one of the rights he feels strongly about. He is guided by fairness the values of the Constitution, freedom, equality and human dignity.
The humble judicial giant calls himself “an ordinary man, no better than anyone else”. He enjoys serving society.
This positive man leads by example. By embodying the integrity of the judiciary, he proves that it still exists. As a citizen of the Lowveld that has come full circle, he embraces this new challenge with confidence, open arms and the trademark Legodi grace.
It is not yet clear when the High Court building will be completed for use.
