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Judge Mandela Makaula

Capacity: Judge
First appointed as judge: January 2010 (Eastern Cape, Gqeberha)
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Black
Date of Birth: May 1964
Qualifications: B. Juris, LLB (1986) (1990) (University of Transkei), LLM (1993) (Georgetown University, USA)

Key judgments:

Candidate Biography | Updated August 2025:

Judge Makaula currently serves as a judge in the Gqeberha High Court.

Although born at Kwa-Thema in Gauteng, Judge Makaula’s life and legal career seems to have been moulded in the Eastern Cape.

Makaula matriculated from Freemantle Boys School, Lady Frere in the Eastern Cape. He holds a B. Juris and LLB from the University of Transkei (now Water Sisulu) and an LLM from Georgetown University in the United States.

Like many others, his legal career started as a clerk and court interpreter in the mid-80s before he worked his way up to become a prosecutor and then magistrate. He was appointed as a magistrate at Libode Magistrates Court in 1988.

Makaula then moved from being a magistrate to being a candidate attorney in 1990, just after obtaining his LLB degree, which he obtained in 1989. After completing his articles of clerkship, he practiced as an attorney at Makaula Zilwa & Co., from 1993 until 2010.

Makuala was appointed to the Eastern Cape High Court in 2010. Prior to his permanent appointment he had acted as a judge in that division. He sat in the Mkahnada High Court from 2010 before moving to the Gqeberha High Court where he has presided since 2017. He has acted as a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) justice from January 2022 until May 2022 and again from April 2022 until September 2022. He has been acting as the Deputy Judge President of the Gqeberha High Court.

Makaula has presided over various cases, some of which have been controversial and highly publicised. He initially presided over the case of S v Omotoso, which concerned a pastor (Omotoso) who was arrested in April 2017, by the Hawks for allegations of rape, human trafficking, and racketeering. Makaula recused himself during the trial when it became apparent that state witnesses had been provided with accommodation at a guesthouse which was owned by his wife. Despite there having been no formal recusal application, Makaula was of the view that it was appropriate for him to recuse himself.

While acting at the SCA, Makaula scribed for the appeal bench in the case of Baloyi v S. This was an appeal from the full bench of the High Court. The appellants in this case were charged with murder where the provisions s 51(1) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 (CLAA), which prescribed the imposition of life imprisonment were applicable. The trial court had found that the accused persons were guilty of premediated murder. The trial court had made no mention of planned or premediated murder in its conviction. The finding that the accused persons were guilty of premediated murder was noted for the first time by the trial court in its sentencing. In an appeal to the full bench, the full bench agreed with the trial court and dismissed the appeal. The SCA had to determine whether the state had established that the murder was indeed premediated.

He noted that the trial court was correct in its analysis of the evidence and finding the appellants were guilty as charged. However, the trial court misdirected itself when it mentioned premediated murder for the first time in its sentencing. In reaching this conclusion, Makaula found it necessary to consider the evidence presented before the trial court. In considering the evidence Makaula noted that the second accused had fought with the deceased earlier in the day, later committed the murder with the first accused and this was a continuation of the fight that had earlier occurred. According to Makaula the murder was premeditated.

Although according to the evidence the murder was premediated, Makaula had to consider the appropriateness of the trial court mentioning premeditation at sentencing for the first time, as it was not mentioned during conviction. He noted that the appellants were not prejudiced by the trial court’s misdirection because there was compelling evidence pointing to premediated murder and they had been informed of the applicability of the minimum sentencing legislation on the basis of premeditated murder. Therefore, the SCA dismissed the appeal.

While at the SCA, Makaula also presided over the matter of Wesizwe Feziwe Sigcau v the President of the Republic of South Africa, which dealt with the review of a determination of the successor to the royal throne under the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act, in particular the failure by the Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims (the Commission) to exercise statutory authority to investigate the contested traditional leadership position for the nation of the amaMpondo aseQaukeni. In reviewing and setting aside the determination of the Commission, Makaula found that the Commission ignored relevant evidence on how amaMpondo had chosen their leaders historically and had failed to take into account the interests of the community and fitness of the candidate for succession as required by the Act.

Makaula was a member of NADEL for twenty years, he was an instructor at the East London Law School for eleven years and was an examiner for the then Cape Law Society (now Legal Practice Council) for five years. He stands in good stead as a candidate for the Deputy Judge President position of the Eastern Cape High Court, in particular given his time acting as the Deputy Judge President of that court.

 

 

October 2025 Interview

Interview Synopsis

Judge Mandela Makaula’s interview was the second of the day. He was interviewing for the position of Deputy Judge President of the Eastern Cape, a role for which he has extensive acting experience. From the outset, Judge Makaula was passionate in his responses, calling for the JSC to fill vacancies in the Eastern Cape Division as a matter of urgency. He used the example of a leadership role that had been vacant for two and a half years to illustrate that these vacancies are causing issues with consistency in the region and making it difficult to carry out the necessary reform work.

When asked by the Chief Justice what his priorities would be in reforming court practices in the Eastern Cape, he identified a need for greater synergy between the front and back offices, as well as the establishment of uniform practices across the various courts in the division. Both the Chief Justice and the Acting Judge President commended Judge Makaula on his experience. They noted his record of reported judgments (some eighteen, according to the judge), several of which arose from his time acting in the SCA. The Acting Judge President, in particular, noted that Judge Makaula’s experience sitting on the bench at the SCA distinguished him from the other candidates.

However, questions were raised about Judge Makaula’s attention to detail, as well as his suitability for this particular role in this division. The first concern stemmed from the fact that Judge Makaula had failed to attach his CV to his application to the Judicial Service Commission, which some suggested reflected a level of carelessness that is disconcerting for a judge seeking a leadership role. Similarly, Minister Kubayi noted that, when asked on his application form what his contributions to the field of law had been, he responded extremely briefly. This, she said, suggested a lack of care in completing the form, which was worrying given its importance. Judge Makaula accepted these assertions and apologised for his oversight.

The second concern related specifically to the fact that the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court has historically struggled to attract women to the judiciary, and Judge Makaula was the sole male candidate, interviewed alongside two black women. Judge Makaula responded by outlining his extensive history of working with, promoting, and supporting female colleagues, stating that it was the responsibility of judicial leadership to groom female practitioners for leadership wherever possible. Some contention also arose when, in response to a question about the newly implemented policy against sexual harassment, Judge Makaula stated that he advises all male colleagues not to hug women for fear of engaging in sexual harassment. To commissioners like Minister Kubayi, this response indicated a misunderstanding of what constitutes sexual harassment.

 

October 2022 Interview

October 2022 JSC Interview of Judge Mandela Makaula for a position on the Supreme Court of Appeal. Judge Makaula’s application was unsuccessful.

 

April 2017 interview

 

April 2017 Interview Synopsis

Apartheid divisions are still evident, structurally and socio-economically, in the Eastern Cape, said Judge Mandela Makaula — and this was apparent in the resourcing of courts, access to justice and the lack of transformation of the legal fraternity in the province.

He said that courts in the former bantustans of Transkei and Ciskei had infrastructure problems and “case flow blockages” while those in the urban centres like Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth were better equipped and had better institutional processes, like accommodating witnesses overnight to ensure they appeared in court. “I don’t understand why this is not done in courts like Mthatha,” he said.

Makuala said that with the promulgation of the Superior Courts Act, there was a real danger that the high court in “Mthatha is going to run dry of cases” because litigants would rather file cases in places like Grahamstown. He said litigants were reticent to approach the high court in Mthatha because of issues that slowed the wheels of justice like a motion court roll that was not split and blockages which he attributed to slack stakeholders including the head of the Legal Aid Board, the commissioner of prisons and the director of public prosecutions in the city.

He expressed a determination to remind the Grahamstown Bar — where only ten of its 82 advocates were black, and of those, only three were women — that “transformation is key”. “We have to engage them in order to transform them,” he declared. He said there were only three black judges who had emerged from the Grahamstown seat of the division, as opposed to the many more from “the other side of the Kei” River.

The attributes that qualified him for the position was that he was “someone who unifies the division,” Makuala said.

Makuala had, in his own words, been “admonished” by the commission for the number of reserved judgments that were accumulating on his desk in previous interviews. He was hauled over the coals again for the same issue.

In defending a late delivery of a judgment in one matter, he described a personal family tragedy, where his son had run over and killed his grandson by accident, which left him in a state where “I couldn’t function.”