Oscar Pistorius judge reflects on her advocacy

The judge who sentenced Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius to five years in prison for killing his girlfriend spoke about her time as an activist during Apartheid in South Africa at the UNC School of Law Monday.

Judge Thokozile Masipa delivered the 2015 William P. Murphy Distinguished Lecture.

Masipa is a judge at the Johannesburg Division for the Gauteng High Court in South Africa, who gained notoriety after presiding over the Pistorius trial.

Before being appointed to the bench, Masipa was an Apartheid activist and a crime reporter for World, a black newspaper.

She said her time as a journalist allowed her to fight the system.

Masipa investigated crime in Apartheid-stricken South Africa; a time when she said segregation was the norm.

Journalists at the time would report on the crime going on that the police were ignoring. According to Masipa, there were many reports of men, women and children simply disappearing overnight.

“At the stroke of a pen, we journalists were able to expose the mischief of the government,” Masipa said.

Due to the activist nature of the journalists, the police made it their business to intimidate them.

Police would arrest any journalists that protested and showed resistance to their authority. Masipa was one of the journalists who was arrested while protesting.

“I was ultimately convicted and had to pay a fine before being released,” she said. “(But) who knew that in just over 20 years I would be presiding as a high court judge?”

But Masipa’s road to the bench was not easy.

In 10 years, she completed her law degree, at the same time she was a working mother and wife. She then practiced for seven years, before being appointed to the bench in 1998.

“Seven years is nothing...you don’t get a lot of experience,” she said. “...And I know I needed to work harder than my colleagues.”

Her hard work paid off.

In 2014, she was assigned the high profile Pistorius trial, where she ultimately delivered the formal verdict, charging him with culpable homicide.

“I never heard of her before the Oscar Pistorius trial,” said UNC law student Robert Sparks. “It was interesting reading her bio.”

UNC law student Molly Harris studied abroad in South Africa.

“I had heard about her before her major trials,” Harris said.

Masipa’s newfound notoriety gives her the chance to make a difference in a society where she feels being free is everything.

“(Growing up) I believed that ordinary people were powerless,” she said. “Officials who wanted to do justice were at a disadvantage since they did not understand the black language.”

Today, Masipa said she is privileged to be a part of the high court system.

“Equality is real,” she said. “The government can be taken to court and lose, that is possible today.”

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