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1 Yvonne Mokgoro Constitutional Court Oral History Project 24 November 2011 Int I'm Interviewing Justice Yvonne Mokgoro At Yvonne Mokgoro Constitutional Court Oral History Project 24 November 2011 Int I’m interviewing Justice Yvonne Mokgoro at the Constitutional Court, and today is the 24th of November, 2011. Yvonne, thank you so much for agreeing to participate in the Constitutional Court Oral History Project. YM You’re most welcome. Int You’ve been a key member to us from the very beginning, as part of the (Constitutional Court Oral History) steering committee, so we value your narrative very much. YM Thank you. Int I wondered whether we could start…much has been written about you, but I’ve not had an opportunity to interview you before, so I wondered if you could start at the very beginning, and talk about your early memories, where you were born, and what was your particular life trajectory that led you to work in the area of social justice? YM Well, I was born in Galeshewe, which is the township attached to Kimberley. And I grew up as one of, say, biologically nine children, but socially eight. Because when I was born, by that time the firstborn child of my parents had passed on. So I grew up as the second child in the family of eight siblings, six girls and two boys. And as it usually is in African tradition…maybe in other traditions too…when you’re the second born child, especially when you’re a girl during those days, you had quite a bit of responsibility to your siblings, their well-being. Both parents were of working class, had nine to five jobs, and most of the house chores were done by us, and you had the responsibility to see to either those house chores are done, and other creative tasks. So generally that was my upbringing. And then I went to school, the St Barnabas High School, and I think I had quite…I was quite fortunate that I went to a mission school, a Catholic mission school, and those, during those days, Catholic mission schools were really social entities where particularly people who had socio-economic challenges were quite…if you go to those schools you were lucky because the school fees were not steep and you could receive assistance, financial assistance, if there’s a need. And the other thing about that particular school was also that we got a bit…at least one meal a day at school. Sometimes it would be your only meal for the day. But at other times…my mom worked as a domestic, and my dad was, as we called then, a worker…then we said a labourer…on the railway lines. And my mom would sometimes bring in leftovers from work, and those would also be very helpful for the family dinner on a particular day. So generally that was my experience at school, at work, at home. And I’ve always known that I would want one day 1 to work with people. There was a stage when I thought I would be a nun, because I went to a Catholic school where our role models were nuns, teachers, nuns, and then I thought, no maybe a teacher. So when I passed my standard ten, and I went to university, I enrolled for an education degree with a view to becoming a teacher. But I had this special experience where at some stage I met Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, who was then banished to Kimberley, after he had been released from Robben Island, and he was one of only two lawyers in the township. And I think one of only two African lawyers at the time, in the whole Kimberley. And I had an experience with him where I objected quite vehemently when a young man was being arrested by a police on a Friday afternoon for loitering, when in my view he hadn’t done anything. And the police just swept me, threw me into the police van and locked me up for the weekend. And then on the Monday morning my family got Robert Sobukwe to represent me when I appeared for the first time before the court, after the so-called forty-eight hours. And I was lamenting to him the paucity of black men in Kimberley who study law, because we need so many lawyers in the township, them having been the only two lawyers, black lawyers, in the townships. We need lawyers in this township, things like this. And I was just wondering where that young man was who was arrested, as far as I’m concerned for nothing. And here I am being represented and getting my release. I wondered what was happening to him. He told me that he can’t solve all the problems of the world. And what do I mean when I say, why don’t we have more men, black men studying law so that they can help people in the township? And I said, well, the legal profession is the male dominated profession, and I don’t see a chance that I could practise as a lawyer, and he said, well, it’s good that you said male dominated, but not exclusively male. There’s no law that precludes women from studying law and becoming lawyers. And the rest is history. Int Interesting. What a charming story, in a way, because he was so progressive. YM Oh, he was so progressive. At the time, you know, yes, and I never forget that. I always tell that story. It’s such a motivating story, when I motivate young girls, and young people generally, of the need to enter into professions where you work with people and make a difference in the lives of people, I always tell that story. He made a difference in my life; he made a difference in the lives of people in the township. He played a very prominent role, well- respected and very respectful man. And I think he motivated me. And I haven’t looked back since then. I used my legal knowledge, legal profession; to do what I say, work with people. Int Yvonne, once you studied law, what did you then use law for? YM I loved jurisprudence. For some reason or another I loved jurisprudence. Legal philosophy, thinking about the law, thinking of ways of improving the law, analysing the law as it is, looking at how to improve the law. And I ended 2 up becoming a teacher. And that’s essentially the approach that I took to teaching law, provoking students’ debates, and finding weaknesses in the law, and debating on how to improve the law. When I started writing, I also looked at the law from that perspective, how to improve the law, how the law can be used to defend people, to advocate people’s rights. At the time when human rights was, as we would say, clichéd as it may sound, not fashionable. You know, debating ways of improving the system to better people’s lives, people’s rights. Int So you became an academic? YM I became an academic and I also used the law in my activities as an activist, because when I was an academic I was quite an activist. We started, for example, the first Anti-Repression Forum in the so-called Bophuthatswana. Mafikeng Anti-Repression Forum. Then the ANC was still banned, but as soon as there was light at the end of the tunnel, in around 1989/90, we started the first ANC branch in Mafikeng, and that was considered highly subversive (laughs), and we had much altercation with the Security Police at the time. And that’s when I used my legal knowledge, you know, to try to improve people’s lives, try to improve the way communities see oppression and repression, and try to save and protect people from oppressions, repression, with my legal knowledge. Int And, Yvonne, you had mentioned to me that in terms of the Constitution making process, you’d been involved at the University of Western Cape, as an academic, in actually discussing aspects of the Constitution, etc., and I wondered whether you could talk about that? YM Ja, I wasn’t directly involved in the technical committee, you know, that sat at the negotiations forum that was part of that process. But as an academic – at the time I was teaching at the University of the Western Cape, and we had a Community Law Centre as part…attached to the University, as part of the Law School – and a number of our colleagues who were involved in the negotiations process, first CODESA 1, and later CODESA 2, had a lot of discussions with academics at the Law School about prospective provisions of the Constitution, and clarifying their views on issues that would be discussed in plenary or that they would submit to the technical committee. And those discussions, some of those discussions, actually ended up in specific views that were put forward in plenary during CODESA or submitted to…views submitted to the technical committee, and it was quite pleasing to see some of those views reflected in the Interim Constitution of 1993. So to that extent, as an academic, with discussions. And we also had quite a few seminars and conferences where we had public discussions on prospective rights that might find themselves in the Bill of Rights at some stage, and questions of the judiciary formation, structure of the judiciary. Those were some of the 3 opportunities that we as academics had at the time to participate in this broader process but at a much background level.
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