Justice Dumisa Ntsebeza's shares his personal story from the apartheid era in South Africa

Justice Dumisa Ntsebeza of South Africa spoke to the Notre Dame Law School community on October 11 in a lecture titled, "How I survived being framed in an Apartheid-era massacre: A Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner shares his story.”

Justice Ntsebeza, a renowned South African lawyer, former acting judge, and justice of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, shared his experiences. He recounted being framed by state security forces while investigating gross human rights violations from the apartheid era.

“Whenever I think of what happened, I think of tradition or a history of preying on the apartheid activists by the South African apartheid systems,” Justice Ntzebeza said during the lecture.

As Notre Dame Law School’s Distinguished Global Jurist in Residence, Justice Ntsebeza also taught a week-long seminar, “Reconciliation and Justice in the Post-Conflict Context.”

Justice Ntsebeza currently serves as judge of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. He holds several degrees, including a law degree earned while completing a long-term prison sentence for political activism. In 1995, President Nelson Mandela appointed Justice Ntsebeza as a commissioner for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where he led its Investigative Unit and Witness Protection Programme.

He also visited the Law School during the spring 2023 semester.

Watch the recording of the lecture here.