THE past two weeks have given the country an opportunity to mourn, remember and reflect on the life of Chief Justice Bheki Maphalala.
His passing brought the country together in mourning, but the period around his State memorial and State funeral also created an opportunity to look beyond the office he occupied and understand the journey that brought him to the country’s highest corridors of power.
In the course of being involved in the arrangements around the mourning and celebration of his life, I had an opportunity to speak to people from different parts of his life. I spoke to members of his family, people from his community, professional associates, colleagues within the Judiciary and friends who knew him away from the courtroom.
Those conversations gave me a broader understanding of Chief Justice Maphalala and raised questions about his journey, the challenges he encountered, the opportunities he got and the responsibilities he carried once he reached the highest levels of the legal profession.
FROM LAWUBA TO THE WORLD
CJ Maphalala grew up in Lawuba as one of five children, raised by his mother at a time when the family had very limited material privilege. Some of the accounts shared with me described a childhood in which there were periods when he did not even have shoes and had to walk to school barefoot.
Yet, those who knew him from those early years consistently spoke about his ability as a young learner. He was considered particularly bright, with a strong aptitude for mathematics and science.
THE EDUCATION THAT ALMOST STOPPED
After completing Form Three, he passed his examinations but the family did not have the money required for him to continue to high school. For a period, he remained at home because there was simply no financial means to continue his education.
He then searched for work at Ubombo Ranches, doing labour and other work in the sugar cane fields. One of his senior brothers explained that the difficulty of that life affected him deeply. Maphalala did not want to remain there permanently and began looking for another way forward.
Young Maphalala approached his maternal uncles and asked them to assist him with his education. They agreed to pay for his schooling, giving him another opportunity to continue with his studies.
THE ROAD TO LAW
At high school, his ability in mathematics and science continued to stand out. However, there was no science teacher at Franson Christian High School, and because of that he eventually took arts subjects. That decision, shaped in part by circumstances rather than an original plan, would ultimately lead him towards law.
Maphalala went on to study law at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he obtained his BProc and LLB degrees in 1990. He entered private legal practice in 1992 and remained in practice until his appointment to the High Court in 2009.
Two years later, in 2011, he was appointed to the Supreme Court, becoming the first Liswati to be permanently appointed to that court. In 2015, he became Chief Justice, also becoming the first liSwati to hold that office.
His involvement in the country’s constitutional development had started long before he became chief justice. He served on the Constitutional Review Commission in 1996 and later on the Constitution Drafting Committee in 2002, contributing to a process that eventually produced the Constitution of the Kingdom of Eswatini.
That constitutional background is important when considering the responsibilities Maphalala carried as chief justice. Much of the work of the Supreme Court involved questions of law and constitutional interpretation, and his associates described him as someone who took seriously the responsibility of upholding and protecting the Constitution.
THE BURDEN OF THE OFFICE
Speaking to people who worked closely with the CJ also brought out another side of judicial office that is not always visible to the public.
Zweli Jele, one of his professional associates, spoke about the difficulty that comes with making judicial decisions. A judge is required to decide matters according to the law, but those decisions can sometimes go against the interests or expectations of individuals involved in a case.
When that happens, the decision can create disagreement, antagonism or tension and there can be a tendency for people to associate the outcome with the judge personally. The distinction between the judicial office and the individual occupying it is therefore not always easy for members of the public to maintain.
This does not mean that every judgment is beyond criticism or disagreement. It speaks instead to the particular burden attached to judicial office and the personal consequences that can accompany decisions made in the exercise of that responsibility.
BEYOND THE COURTROOM
Away from the courtroom, the accounts shared also spoke about Maphalala’s willingness to assist people who came into his life. Some had approached him with legal problems, while others received support in their personal circumstances.
There were people whom he reportedly took into his care and supported at his homestead. His assistance also extended to education, with accounts of people receiving help from primary school through high school and, in some cases, into higher education.
That part of his life is particularly interesting when considered against his own experience. Maphalala knew what it meant for a child’s education to be interrupted because there was no money available. He had personally experienced the uncertainty of not knowing whether he would be able to continue with school.
Years later, when he had the means to do so, he was in a position to assist others with opportunities that had once depended on his maternal uncles making a sacrifice for him.
He also remained connected to his community and his traditional responsibilities. Despite occupying the highest judicial office in the country, Maphalala continued to have a place within his community and was involved in traditional structures as an Indvuna.
That connection between the Supreme Court and Lawuba says something important about the different responsibilities he carried. The CJ occupied a position of considerable constitutional responsibility, but he remained connected to the community from which he came.
During the period of mourning, there was also considerable public discussion about the circumstances surrounding his death. As is often the case when a prominent public figure dies, different accounts and speculation began to circulate.
I was particularly struck when a senior member of the family made it clear that the family did not want to be associated with those narratives or with attempts to turn his death into controversy. The family had reached its own place of acceptance around his passing and was content with what it understood about the circumstances of his death.
For me, that was also part of understanding the family experience of losing Maphalala. Beyond the public office, there was a family dealing with the loss of a relative, a community mourning one of its own and colleagues saying goodbye to someone with whom they had shared years of professional responsibility.
WHAT HIS JOURNEY LEFT BEHIND
The conversations I had during the mourning period left me thinking less about the title of chief justice and more about the journey that eventually led Maphalala to that position.
It began in Lawuba, in a family that did not have much, with a young boy whose education almost stopped after Form Three. It continued through work in the sugar cane fields, the intervention of his maternal uncles, his education, his decision to study law and a legal career that eventually took him to the High Court, the Supreme Court and the office of chief justice.
His life also raises a practical question about what happens when an opportunity is eventually given to someone who once had very little. In Maphalala’s case, the opportunity to continue his education did not only change his own circumstances. Later in life, he was able to extend opportunities to other people through education, legal assistance and personal support.
That is one of the things I took away from speaking to the people who knew him and from being part of the period in which the country celebrated his life. His story is not simply about reaching the office of chief justice. It is also about the circumstances that came before that office and the people who helped him along the way.
CONCLUSION
His life does not tell us that every child from a humble background will become a chief justice. It tells us something more realistic and, perhaps, more important: that we cannot always know what a person is capable of becoming by looking at the circumstances in which we first encounter them.
Sometimes that potential needs education, sometimes it needs a family willing to make a sacrifice, and sometimes it simply needs somebody to give a young person another opportunity when the first door has closed.
That is where Bheki Maphalala’s journey began, and it is also what makes the distance he travelled worth remembering.
May his soul rest in eternal peace.
Until next week,
God bless.
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