Steven Majiedt

After the end of apartheid, he was Provincial State Law Adviser to Premier Manne Dipico's government in the Northern Cape between 1996 and 2000 and then practiced briefly in chambers in Kimberley before he was appointed to the High Court of South Africa later in 2000.

[2] He matriculated at William Pescod High School in Kimberley in 1978 and went on to the University of the Western Cape, where he completed a BA in law in 1981 and an LLB in 1983.

[1] Upon his graduation, Majiedt hoped to return to Kimberley to practice as an attorney, but he was unable to secure a position there to complete his articles of clerkship.

[3] Majiedt later said that he considered Omar a mentor and that Omar advised him in 1984 to remain in South Africa, on political grounds, rather than accept a Fulbright Scholarship to complete an LLM at Stanford Law School; for family reasons, Majiedt also declined an offer to complete an LLM at Northwestern University School of Law in 1987.

[1] The following year, under the first post-apartheid administration, he was appointed as Chief Provincial State Law Adviser in the newly incorporated Northern Cape Province, where he served under Premier Manne Dipico.

[3] On 1 May 2000, Majiedt joined the bench, appointed by President Thabo Mbeki as a judge of the Northern Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa.

[7] On 3 November 2010, President Jacob Zuma announced Majiedt's elevation to the Supreme Court of Appeal, where he joined the bench on 1 December 2010.

[3][4] In April 2017, Majiedt and four other candidates – Leona Theron, Malcolm Wallis, Boissie Mbha, and Jody Kollapen – were shortlisted and interviewed for possible permanent appointment to a seat on the Constitutional Court, which had been vacated by the retirement of Justice Johann van der Westhuizen.

Two years later, in April 2019, Majiedt was again shortlisted for Constitutional Court appointment, this time as one of six candidates vying to replace retired Justices Bess Nkabinde and Dikgang Moseneke.

[18][19] Since then, notable judgements penned by Majiedt include the court's unanimous judgements in Qwelane v South African Human Rights Commission, a hate speech matter which established the unconstitutionality of Section 10(1)(a) of the Equality Act,[20] and in Mineral Sands Resources v Reddell, which asserted for the first time the validity of the SLAPP suit defence under South African common law.