Capacity: Advocate
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Coloured
Date of Birth: March 1961
Qualifications: BA (1982)(UWC) LLB (1989)(Rhodes)
Candidate Bio (Updated September 2024)
Advocate Gregory Ally is one of many aspirant judges who traversed through a different career path before finding success and longevity within the legal world. For 3 years, Ally was an educator teaching at St Thomas Senior Secondary School in Gqeberha. He taught science and biology.
The law’s call had clearly beckoned, as Ally left to study for an LLB at Rhodes University. In 1989 Ally was admitted as an advocate and began practising in 1990 under the Port Elizabeth Society of Advocates. Ally’s previous experience as an educator eventually intertwined with his legal work, as he served as Head of legal services at the Gauteng Department of Education from 1997 to 2001.
Adding to his areas of interest, Advocate Ally also developed a career in security and intelligence. He served as the Head of legislative services at the South African Secret Services followed by 5 years as the Director of the Security Intelligence Centre. Ally’s area of focus was counterintelligence investigations and terrorism.
This led Ally to a position in the South African Embassy in Algiers, Algeria, working in intelligence. Ally would then hold the position of Chief of Staff in the Office of the Director-General of the State Security Agency.
In 2012 Ally returned to practice as an advocate and would remain until the present day. This gives Ally short of two decades of experience as a practicing advocate and 15 years of experience in government, albeit with a focus on law. Ally has found a way to combine his experience and interest in the law with his parallel interests in education and intelligence.
In the wake of calls for free education and the ancillary matters of funding and training in higher education that erupted in 2015 across the country at various institutions – the Fees Must Fall protests – then president Jacob Zuma established the Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training (The Fees Commission). Ally was appointed as one of its three members. The Fees Commission made multiple recommendations, including replacing NSFAS with an Income Contingency Loan system whereby students are issued loans by commercial banks, repayable upon graduation. This would be contingent on the student reaching a certain income level. If they failed to do so, the government would bear the secondary liability. The government ultimately decided to keep the NSFAF system.
Advocate Ally has served various stints as acting judge of the Gauteng Division of the High Court since 2020, serving a total of 57 weeks.
In Moloi v S Ally dealt with an appeal against a finding by the Magistrates Court that the appellant was guilty of robbery with aggravating circumstances. In this matter, the complainant was held at gunpoint by three assailants, one of whom the complainant identified as the appellant, while opening his flip garage door. The complainant was directed to open several of his safes, all while being assaulted by the applicant. The assailants, after taking the guns and ammunition in the safes, drove away in the complainant’s car which was later found idle nearby. The complainant called the South African Police Service (SAPS) who, in the course of their investigation, collected various fingerprints on the garage door that matched those of the appellant.
The appellant nonetheless insisted on his innocence and disputed his identification by the complainant. He explained that his fingerprints could be accounted for due to his presence on the property at another time, where he had opened the garage door looking for the occupants of the house. The Magistrates Court had analysed the State’s evidence, concluding that the State had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Ally stated that a Court of Appeal can only overturn a trial court’s findings of fact if such findings are “vitiated by a material misdirection or are shown from the record to be clearly wrong.” Ally pointed to several instances of conduct on the part of the presiding Magistrate that were unfortunate. In particular, the presiding Magistrate had gone to the crime scene and had failed to inform the legal representatives of the State and the Defence before doing so. This constituted a material misdirection.
This, according to Ally, warranted that the Appeal Court assess the evidence afresh and determine whether the conviction could be upheld but did not vitiate the proceedings in toto.
Ally further reasoned that:
It must be remembered that the State alone, bears the onus of proving its case beyond reasonable doubt. An accused should be convicted if the Court finds not only that his version is improbable, but also that it is false beyond reasonable doubt. It is not necessary for a Court to believe an accused person in order to acquit him or her.
Ally found the evidence collected unconvincing. Regarding the fingerprints, he reasoned that it could not reasonably be inferred that the appellant was one of the perpetrators as this would be the case only if the appellant had no explanation for the presence of his fingerprint. Further, Ally reasoned that the appellant’s fingerprints would surely be in multiple places in the house given the complainant’s account. This was not the case. Ally concluded that the State had not proven its case beyond reasonable doubt and upheld the appeal, setting aside the conviction and sentence.
October 2024 Interview:
October 2024 Interview Synopsis:
CJ Maya covered the usual pleasantries which included Advocate Ally starting his career as a teacher to pay back the bursary he received for his studies and went on to cover his diverse employment history including working for the department of education and the secret service.
However, the main contention raised by several commissioners and first brought up by CJ Maya, was hAdvocate Ally’s delay in handing down judgments. When questioning Ally about his written judgments, he stated that only one of his reserve judgments had not been delivered (Alexandra judgment) which was heard in July 2023. When questioning the delays in handing down this judgment he didn’t provide a clear answer to the Chief Justice. CJ Maya noted that this “is extremely worrisome” and explained that the norms and standards set out that there are 3 months for judgments to be delivered.
Minister Simelane picked up on the issue of outstanding judgments, commenting that she would find it difficult to be convinced on how he would improve given how he dealt with outstanding cases. She went on to explain the Alexandra case which involved a child with cerebral palsy who was awaiting a decision on their future medical expenses and how he has not met several deadlines on the matter. He provided a vague response that didn’t go further than what he responded to CJ Maya.
On this topic, Judge President Tlaletsi asked how Ally would give advice to JP’s and the JSC to deal with the problem of judges taking a long time to hand down judgments? Ally said that Judge President Mlambo has already got the ball rolling on issues of this nature and the more one implements this policy the less deficiencies there will be.
Unusually, which seemed further to Ally’s detriment, when asked who nominated him for the position he stated that he had nominated himself. Ally explained that the nomination does not explain who nominates a candidate, he was shortlisted despite this fact. CJ Maya said that this is bizarre but the issue lies with the commissioners that shortlisted him.
Changing topics, testing his legal knowledge Prof Marumoaggae asked him if an organ of state can utilise PAJA for the purposes of reviewing and setting aside its own decision? Ally answered in the affirmative. Marumoaggae went on to ask what the difference is in the review process under PAJA in comparison to the principle of legality? Ally gave a short response which left the impression that the Professor was unsatisfied with both answers.
Adv Ally was ultimately unsuccessful.
