Pretoria - Emeritus Justice Sisi Khampepe was on Friday inaugurated as the chancellor of the University of Pretoria for the next five years.
In her acceptance speech, Justice Khampepe said: “I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, who provided three consecutive terms of faithful service. He leaves behind an indelible legacy.
“Through Professor Nkuhlu’s commitment to excellence and his intense desire to effect positive change, I am joining an institution that is stronger than ever before.”
She said a university was not isolated from the problems of its society, but had a role to play in influencing a positive change in the socio-economic circumstances faced by society.
She said South Africa was still an unequal nation facing myriad challenges, most noticeably in the high rate of unemployment and poverty.
Positively, she said, “the University of Pretoria had a vision, strategic goals and associated priorities which baldly profess the pursuit of the public good.
“We are responsive to national priorities as well as global challenges. And we engage productively with our communities, industry, government and non-governmental entities, and other partners while also learning from them,” she added.
Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Tawana Kupe said the university was proud to associate itself with Justice Khampepe, who had an inspiring legacy that included over 40 years of dedication to her “commendable and widely recognised work”.
He said the Justice Khampepe’s last two judgments before retiring related to the commission of inquiry into state capture. He said the judgments served to strengthen the rule of law and the principle of equality before the law.
The Soweto-born legal icon, 65, is a retired judge of the Constitutional Court. She served from 2009 to 2021.
In 1995, she was appointed by the then president Nelson Mandela as a commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the following year she became a member of its amnesty committee.
In the period April 2005 to February 2006, Khampepe was appointed by Mbeki to chair what became the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry into the mandate and location of the Directorate of Special Operations, also known as the Scorpions.
In February 2006, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Hert Hon Donald C McKinnon, seconded her as a member of the Commonwealth Observer Group to the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Uganda.
Justice Khampepe has been involved in the Black Lawyers Association, was vice-chairperson of the Women’s Desk on Children and Women Abuse, a member of the Helen Joseph Hospital Board of governors and a donor to the Sparrow Rainbow Village, an Aids Hospice.
Pretoria News