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Advocate Jacques Minnaar

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Capacity: Advocate
Admission as an advocate: 2005
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: White
Date of Birth: August 1974
Qualifications: BProc (2002) LLB (2003) (University of South Africa)

Key Judgments

Candidate Biography | Updated August 2026:

Jacques Minnaar is an Advocate and member of the Gauteng Society of Advocates.

Born in Bethal, Mpumalanga, he came to law after several other careers. In his JSC application, he records working as a sergeant in the South African Police Service’s Criminal Record Centre from 1993 to 1997, as a yard manager at a hardware and plumbing supplier, and then as a tourist guide and tour leader, before completing his BProc (2002) and LLB (2003) through the University of South Africa.

Adv Minnaar did pupillage at the Pretoria Society of Advocates in 2004 and has practised as an advocate since 2005, first at the Pretoria Bar, then the Mpumalanga Bar (2018-2020), and then the Gauteng Society of Advocates since 2020.

His practice is largely in the motion court, where he handles foreclosure and sequestration applications, work which, he notes, turns on people’s primary housing and dignity.

Minnaar has acted as a judge of the Gauteng Division across 53 weeks since 2020, sitting in unopposed and opposed motions, urgent applications, civil and Road Accident Fund trials, the family court, interlocutory proceedings and civil and criminal appeals. Over these terms, he says he has handed down 34 written judgments.

His judgments span commercial, delict and administrative-law disputes. On the commercial side, he ruled on contractual liability arising from the sale of immovable property in Van Der Merwe v PQJ Projects (Pty) Ltd, dismissing an exception on the basis that the pleaded facts sustained a cause of action notwithstanding a voetstoots clause and related exclusions; and on the existence of a tacit contract in Sable Place Properties 106 (Pty) Ltd v Visa Security Group, where, finding that no five-year security agreement had been concluded, he ordered the incumbent to vacate and granted interdictory relief.

In Oosthuizen NO v Pistorius NO, he dealt with the removal of trustees, holding that the surviving founder was empowered under the trust deed to remove and replace trustees and that the decision was not administrative action attracting the procedural-fairness requirements of PAJA. In Durbanvale Trade and Investment (Pty) Ltd v Estate Agency Affairs Board, he addressed the interface between delict and administrative law, holding that the refusal to renew a Fidelity Fund Certificate had to be challenged by review under PAJA rather than pursued as a delictual claim for damages.

He highlights his 16 weeks of pro bono acting stints as a deliberate contribution to easing the Division’s heavy workload. Away from the bench, he has mentored five pupils through the Pretoria Society of Advocates’ pupillage programme.

He has various memberships outside the law, including as a keen aviator. He has been an ordinary member of the Klein Karoo Flying Club and the Witbank (Emalahleni) Aeronautical Association since 2020. Additionally, he is a member of the Pretoria Municipal Bowling Club (2024) and served as trustee and later chairperson of the Hillside Body Corporate between 2004 and 2017.

The question for the JSC will be whether that heavy diet of foreclosure and motion work, together with his commitment to pro bono sitting, makes the case for a permanent seat.