Capacity: Attorney
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: African
Date of Birth: August 1971
Qualifications: B.Proc (1993)(University of Limpopo)
Candidate Bio | Updated August 2025
Mr Stephens Anthony Thobane is a seasoned legal practitioner and attorney.
He has nearly 30 years of distinguished experience spanning private practice, judicial service, and leadership within South Africa’s legal profession.
A graduate of the University of the North (now the University of Limpopo), he began his career as a candidate attorney at Lephoko Ledwaba and Sekati Inc., progressing quickly to professional assistant and branch office manager. In these roles, he gained early exposure to litigation, CCMA appearances, debt collection, and general office management.
In 1997, Mr Thobane became a partner at Mukhari, Thobane & Sibanyoni Attorneys, where he played a pivotal role in expanding the firm’s client base, overseeing operations, and managing complex litigation matters. In 2001, he founded S.A. Thobane Attorneys, which he successfully led for nearly two decades. His practice encompassed High Court litigation (both criminal and civil), Labour Court matters, administration of deceased estates, drafting of pleadings and contracts, municipal by-laws, legal opinions, sequestrations, appeals, and arbitrations.
Complementing his extensive practice, Mr Thobane has pursued continuous professional development, completing Practical Legal Training, Conveyancing and Notarial Practice courses, and both the Basic and Advanced Aspirant Judges Programmes through the South African Judicial Education Institute (SAJEI).
He has served as an acting judge in various divisions of the High Court since 2013, including the Gauteng Division, delivering written judgments—many of which are available on SAFLII—and gaining exposure to a wide variety of areas of the law.
One such matter, the unreported H.C.B. case, demonstrated his ability to engage with both the technical interpretation of procedural law and broader principles of justice, fairness, and equity. In this case, Thobane confirmed the applicability of the minimum sentence of life imprisonment imposed on a mother who had facilitated the rape and abuse of her own children. The mother appealed the sentence, but after carefully considering whether she had been properly informed of the applicability of the Minimum Sentencing Act, Thobane dismissed the appeal.
Mr Thobane’s leadership credentials are equally impressive. He has served as President of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces (2010–2011), a councillor of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces Council, council member of the Mpumalanga Attorneys Council, and trustee (and Vice-Chairperson) of the Attorneys Fidelity Fund. He has also chaired the NADEL Mpumalanga branch and contributed to community legal initiatives as trustee of the Ukuthula Advice Centre. He is credited with establishing the Small Claims Court in the former KwaNdebele area of Mpumalanga in 2008 and chaired numerous municipal disciplinary hearings between 2003 and 2008 across Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
Mr Thobane’s career reflects a deep commitment to justice, fairness, and the transformative vision of South Africa’s constitutional democracy.
October 2025 Interview:
The Judicial Service Commission interviewed candidates for eight vacancies in the Gauteng Division of the High Court. Following deliberations, the Commission had resolved not to recommend Mr Stephens Anthony Thobane for the position.
Mr Stephens Anthony Thobane’s interview was unsuccessful.
October 2016 Interview:
October 2016 Interview synopsis:
The Law Society of the Northern Provinces had made the Judicial Service Commission aware that attorney Stephens Thobane had not been punctual in filing his company’s audited financial reports for the past two years.
This was an issue that Commissioner Narend Singh picked up on and probed Thobane on. The attorney responded that, in the first instance, his auditor (who had been working for him for ten years, and still does) had not signed an electronically filed copy of his financials. There was also, Thobane told the commission, a discrepancy between his auditor’s calculation of the interest in his trust account and that by the law society. This had yet to be resolved, Thobane said. In the second instance, his “auditor just delayed” filing the reports, Thobane said, adding, “I’m embarrassed.”
Singh, the IFP parliamentarian on the commission, pointed out that this “borders on financial mismanagement”, to which Thobane agreed. When Singh pushed him on whether, as a sitting judge, he would be convinced by this version, Thobane pointed out that this sort of situation would probably never see the courts and listed the procedure in these instances.
This response was picked up on by Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza SC, one of four commissioners appointed by President Jacob Zuma, who suggested that Thobane, by giving a “technical” response to Singh’s question, had shied away from the more pressing philosophical and ethical aspects of it.
These included “whether on your version of events [regarding the late filing of financials]… You would be satisfied as a judge that the story about your audits is reasonably satisfactory?”
“My answer is an emphatic yes. I think I accounted,” said Thobane.
Other areas traversed by commissioners during the interview included the role and status of customary law in South Africa’s legal framework, his formative political experiences at university during the 1980s and whether Thobane was guilty of ageism.
The last theme was explored following Thobane’s comments to Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo that they had had no disagreements because the attorney didn’t confront “elders” out of respect. He then pushed on whether he would ever raise issues within the judicial hierarchy, especially if a judge president was “irresponsible” — Thobane, after a rather convoluted conversation with commissioner Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters, stated that he would not shy away from raising issues but with do it “respectfully”.