18 May 2023 Volume :11 Issue :25
“Continue to Fight Gender-Based Violence!”
Attending the 19th Victoria and Griffiths Mxenge Memorial Lecture are (from left): Mr Raj Badal, Justice Thoba Poyo-Dlwati, Advocate Shamila Batohi, Dr Mark Hay, Ms Deborah Samuel, and Professor Warren Freedman.Violence should not be a way of life and society should ensure that this issue remains high on the agenda.
This clarion call was made by Justice Thoba Poyo-Dlwati when she delivered the 19th Victoria and Griffiths Mxenge Memorial Lecture at UKZN.
Poyo-Dlwati, who is the first woman to be appointed Judge President of the KwaZulu-Natal Division of the High Court, called on current and future members of the legal profession to use the law to eradicate gender-based violence. In her lecture titled: The Role of Women in the Legal Profession, she urged the Mxenge family to find solace in the fact that Victoria died because she opposed an oppressive system, which cannot be said of those women who “die for no reason” at all.
‘Research shows that a woman dies every four hours at the hands of a loved one. Despite our country’s progressive laws that aim to curb this pandemic, as President Cyril Ramaphosa has described it, there does not seem to be any end in sight and the violence continues unabated. I urge all of us, especially women and the progressive men that have associated themselves with this fight to continue fighting because I firmly believe that Mama Mxenge did not have any hope that apartheid would be defeated; 1994 was too far off for her to have had any glimpse of hope.
‘Resilience, persistence and focus helped her. We should learn from this and not lose hope. We, too, shall conquer even if it is not us but those who come after us, just like Mrs Mxenge,’ said Poyo-Dlwati.
The Victoria and Griffiths Mxenge Memorial Lecture is hosted annually by UKZN’s School of Law to honour and acknowledge the crucial contribution Victoria and Griffiths made to liberating South Africans from apartheid. Griffiths was a graduate of the Faculty of Law at the University of Natal. He and his wife Victoria were brutally murdered by the apartheid security police in 1981 and 1985, respectively.
Poyo-Dlwati, who is also a trustee of the Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge Trust, said she hoped the plan to convert the Mxenge home into a museum would soon materialise.
In her lecture, Poyo-Dlwati focused primarily on Victoria’s role because 2023 marks a century since women were allowed to practice Law in South Africa.
‘It was women like Madeline Wookey who started the fight for the rights of women to practice Law. Her application to be admitted as an attorney succeeded in the Cape Supreme Court when Maasdorp JP concluded that women were equally entitled with men to be enrolled as attorneys on furnishing proof of the necessary qualifications. Her success was short-lived, though, as she lost in the Appellate Division in Incorporated Law Society v Wookey1912 AD 623 when Acting Chief Justice Innes concluded that where the law referred to “persons” being admitted as attorneys, it referred only to male persons.’
In Schlein v Incorporated Law Society 1909 TS 363 the court previously held that in the absence of special legislation women were not entitled to be admitted to practice as attorneys. ‘This was fortunately to change; hence the commemoration in our province in a court sitting held in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on 25 April 2023, when we celebrated the coming into effect on 10 April 1923 of the Women Legal Practitioners Act,’ said Poyo-Dlwati. She cited several other milestones achieved by women including her appointment as she is currently the only woman Judge President in South Africa as well as the youngest. She noted, however, that plenty remains to be done.
Son of the struggle stalwarts, Mr Mbasa Mxenge said the lecture immortalised his parents, an honour they appreciate as a family.
‘It is more than 40 years since their passing, but people still remember them. For most of us, the day we die will be the last day they talk about us. But the University found it necessary to keep honouring them,’ he said.
National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Shamila Batohi was also in attendance and the evening honoured Law students who received awards for academic excellence sponsored by various law firms.
Words: Slindile Khanyile
Photograph: Andile Ndlovu
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