All Rise: A Judicial Memoir

Details about All Rise: A Judicial Memoir:

‘All Rise is fascinating on many levels. Moseneke’s industry and energy in producing it are welcome. The book makes a serious and positive contribution to South Africans’ knowledge and insight into many interesting issues. All Rise shines an important light on key aspects of governance in South Africa in the first decades of the existence of the Constitutional Court. And the shining of that light is a marker, as Justice Moseneke would have it, of the hygiene of South Africa’s democratic project.’ – Anton Katz, Daily Maverick At the young age of fifteen, Dikgang Moseneke was imprisoned for participating in anti-apartheid activities. During his ten years of incarceration, he completed his schooling by correspondence and earned two university degrees. Afterwards he studied law at the University of South Africa. After some years in general legal practice and at the Bar, and a brief segue into business, Moseneke was persuaded that he would best serve the country’s young democracy by taking judicial office. All Rise covers his years on the bench, with particular focus on his fifteen-year term as a judge at South Africa’s apex court, the Constitutional Court, including as the deputy chief justice. His insights into the Constitutional Court’s structures, the personalities peopling it, the values it embodies, the human dramas that shook it and the cases that were brought to it make for fascinating reading. From the Constitutional Court of Arthur Chaskalson to the Mogoeng Mogoeng era, Moseneke’s understated but astute commentary is a reflection on the country’s ongoing but not altogether comfortable journey to a better life for all.