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Judge P E (Pitso Ephraim) Molitsoane

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  • Judge P E (Pitso Ephraim) Molitsoane

Capacity: Judge
First appointed as judge: July 2018 (Free State High Court)
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Black
Date of Birth: March 1962
Qualifications: B.Proc (1988)(University of Zululand)

Key Judgments:

Candidate bio | Updated September 2025

Judge Molitsoane is a Judge of the Free State Division of the High Court.

Nominated by the Black Lawyers Association in the Free State, Molitsoane has been a judge in the Free State High Court, Bloemfontein, since 2018. Since his appointment he has acted in the Supreme Court of Appeal for three terms from October 2024 to May 2025.

Born in Welkom, Free State, Molitsoane completed his BProc from the University of Zululand in 1989. Molitsoane worked his way up the ladder starting as a maintenance clerk and working in several positions including a professional assistant on his route to the judiciary. After serving articles he worked at various attorneys’ firms and was admitted as an attorney in 1995. He had acted in the magistrate’s court before his permanent appointment in 2008.

During his stints at the SCA, he has written decisions in HOD: Western Cape Education Department and Others v Equal Education Law Centre) and Auckland Park Theological Seminary v Wamjay Holding Investments. In HOD: Western Cape Education, he had to deal with an appeal arising from an interlocutory application concerning the extent and ambit of rule 53(1)(b)[1] of the Uniform Rules of Court where an applicant seeks both review and non-review relief. More specifically, the crisp legal question he had to consider was whether an applicant seeking both review and non-review relief is entitled to a full record from the decision-maker as envisaged under the rule.

This case involves Equal Education Law Centre (EELC), acting on behalf of parents of unplaced learners in the Metro East Education District for the 2022 academic year. EELC approached the high court seeking both urgent and broader systemic relief. Part A of the application, which concerned immediate learner placement, became moot when the learners were placed. Part B sought various forms of review, declaratory and mandatory relief. A central issue was whether EELC was entitled to compel the Department to furnish a more detailed record beyond what had already been provided, namely, an Excel spreadsheet containing learner placement data. The high court granted EELC’s application, ordering the Department to file additional documents and information. Molitsaone, on appeal, held that the High Court erred. He held that since rule 53(1)(b) entitles an applicant to a record only where the relief sought constitutes a review in terms of the Promotion of Just Administrative Act 2000, the relief sought for EECL fell outside this scope. This is because the relief mostly concerned the development of future placement plans and declarations of systemic failure.

In another unanimous judgment in Auckland Park Theological Seminary v Wamjay Holding Investments, he had to decide on prescription. More specifically, when prescription runs for the purposes of section 12(3) of the Prescription Act and whether the exception to s 12(3) of the Act applies in professional negligence claims against practitioners, finds application in this case. In deciding this matter, Molitsoane delineated the interplay between sections 12(1) – 12 (3) of the Prescription Act.

In sentencing a radiographer who had appealed a magistrates court’s ten-year minimum sentence after being found guilty of raping a patient with his fingers during a medical examination. Molitsoane found that “rape in any form is a heinous, despicable and reprehensible crime”.

Handing down judgement in 2016 Molitsoane quoted wide-ranging case-law, considered the age of the rapist, the fact that he was, until that point “a model student” and that he was supporting his two unemployed parents before reducing the sentence to seven years imprisonment with three years suspended for five years on condition that the appellant was not found guilty of a similar crime during that period. The order was also back-dated to 2014.

Beyond judgment writing, Molitsoane has been involved in peer training of magistrates and he does training for the law society by presiding in Moot Courts. In addition, Molitsoane worked as an investigator for the Independent Electoral Commission in the run-up to South Africa’s first democratic elections. He was a member of the Judicial Officers Association of South Africa and treasurer of its Free State branch. He is also a member of the Uniting Reformed Church.

October 2025 JSC Interview: 

Following deliberations, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has decided that it will not recommend any candidate for appointment for the vacancy at the Supreme Court of Appeal. Judge Pitso Ephraim Molitsoane’s October 2025 interview for a position on the Supreme Court of Appeal was unsuccessful. He was not nominated for appointment.

April 2018 Interview: 

April 2018 Interview Synopsis:

On the final day of its sitting, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) sometimes resembles a high school on its final day before the big holiday break: people get giggly, perhaps high on the possibility of life outside the cabin feverish time spent in lock down for the week’s interviews; odd, even irrelevant, questions may be asked; the interviews get shorter and shorter and so on…

The commission spent most of magistrate Pitso Molitsoane’s interview asking him about the state of South Africa’s prisons — a subject not obviously linked to whether he would be able to adjudicate without fear and favour before deciding whether people should be sent to one of these overcrowded hell-holes.

Much time was spent canvassing Molitsoane’s opinion on whether the state’s rehabilitation programme for prisoners was adequate and served their purpose. Then Molitsoane got the job at the Free State High Court.