By Nomfundo Manyathi

The Judge President of the Land Claims Court, Fikile Bam, passed away on 18 December 2011. The 74-year-old died following a battle with cancer.

Judge President Bam had served as Judge President of the Land Claims Court for more than 15 years and had been part of the legal profession for over 30 years in total.

Judge Bam was born in Tsolo in the Eastern Cape in July 1937. He graduated with a BA (law) degree from the University of Cape Town in 1960 and later obtained his BProc and LLB degrees from the University of South Africa.

He was admitted as an attorney in 1978 after serving a lengthy term on Robben Island after the Sharpeville and Langa massacres. He later joined the Johannesburg Bar Council in 1979, after which he was deported to the Transkei, where he practised as an advocate between 1980 and 1985. In September 1985 he was appointed as director of the newly established Legal Resources Centre in Port Elizabeth.

In a press release, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said that Judge President Bam was ‘the longest serving judicial officer in this capacity at the Land Claims Court ’

He added that: ‘As the judicial community we have lost not only a colleague and a friend, but one of the most widely respected leaders in the legal fraternity, who left an indelible mark in our quest to right the wrongs of the past in relation to land restitution. … His departure has left a vacuum at the Land Claims Court and especially in the forum of the heads of courts, which will be difficult to fill.’

Paying tribute to Judge Bam in a press release, the co-chairpersons of the Law Society of South Africa, Nano Matlala and Praveen Sham, said: ‘As a pioneer of the Land Claims Court, Judge Bam contributed immensely to land reform jurisprudence. He will be missed by the legal profession and by the still landless majority of South Africa as poverty, law and land remain intertwined in our country.’

Nomfundo Manyathi, nomfundo@derebus.org.za

This article was first published in De Rebus in 2012 (Jan/Feb) DR 7.