He spent ten years as a prisoner on Robben Island, where he met and befriended Nelson Mandela and other leading activists.

[1] He was admitted as an attorney in 1976 and practised for five years at Maluleke, Seriti and Moseneke, mainly before the Company Court in liquidation matters and in criminal trials.

[2] Moseneke practised as an advocate in Johannesburg and Pretoria and was noted for his Company Law, Bankruptcy and Indirect Tax practice and was briefed extensively by black and Asian businessmen.

He penned the Constitutional Court's last three majority judgments on the Restitution of Land Rights Act[16] and decided a leading case on expropriation in 2014.

[17] The following year, in Shoprite v MEC, Eastern Cape, which dealt comprehensively with the meaning of the constitutional right to property, Moseneke's judgment attracted the most concurrences.

[19] This was hailed as an "imaginative"[20] and "brilliant"[21] judgment by commentators and means South Africa must have an independent corruption-fighting agency notwithstanding the ruling ANC's controversial disbanding of the Scorpions.

Before his judicial appointment, Moseneke had succeeded, as a litigant, in having South Africa's racially discriminatory system of estate administration declared constitutionally invalid.

At public events, he has distanced himself from ANC interests, criticised the government's flouting of court orders, and decried the extensive powers afforded the President - in each case triggering an angry response from the ruling party.

[29][30] His nomination ahead of Moseneke reminded many of the notorious supersession by L. C. Steyn, a National Party favourite, of Oliver Schreiner.