Winner
Individual Award
Advocate Thuli Madonsela
Advocate Thuli Madonsela’s corruption investigations as public protector are regularly in the news, most recently in connection with the axing of two Cabinet ministers and the suspension of the national police commissioner.
Madonsela was nominated for a Drivers of Change Award with the motivation that, since her appointment as South Africa’s third public protector in October 2009, she “has demonstrated leadership and carried out her mission without fear or prejudice”.
Professor André Mangu, research professor and head of the VerLoren van Themaat Centre for Public Law Studies at Unisa’s College of Law, said Madonsela had “contributed to strengthening constitutional democracy and good governance. She has brought a new energy and given new prominence to the role of the public protector.”
A human-rights and constitutional lawyer with more than two decades of post-legal qualification experience, she has been involved in civic activism since the early 1980s and her community leadership positions are impressive.
Madonsela got her LLB degree at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her postgraduate studies included various legal courses in equality, administrative justice, legal drafting and public administration. She is also trained in strategic planning, scenario planning and project management and has participated in several executive management and leadership courses, including women’s leadership development.
She was one of the drafters of South Africa’s post-apartheid Constitution, and forfeited a Harvard scholarship to focus on her role as one of the technical advisers who worked with the National Assembly in drafting the Constitution. Describing her role in drafting various pieces of progressive legislation, Mangu said she had participated in several international forums and contributed to key international documents.
At the time of her appointment as public protector, she was the only full-time commissioner in the South African Law Reform Commission. In addition to managing the commission’s entire programme her specific projects included a statutory law revision project, the focus of which was constitutional alignment and updating the law.
Madonsela is co-architect of several policies, including the policy framework that formed the basis of the ministry for women, children and persons with disability. She acted as the Independent Electoral Commission’s presiding officer in 1994 and was a research officer and part-time law lecturer at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits from 1993 to 1995.
In the 1980s she worked for the Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union, first as the union’s legal and education officer from 1984 to 1987 and then as national organiser between 1987 and 1989. A member of several professional bodies, including the South African Women Lawyers’ Association, the African Network of Constitutional Lawyers, the Black Lawyers’ Association and the Business Women’s Association of South Africa, Madonsela regularly provides training and addresses conferences on equality and other areas of her expertise.
She has written extensively, including journal articles, book chapters, books and learning resources. The judges agreed with Mangu that Madonsela’s integrity, determination and courage should be recognised and rewarded.
“Corruption is a disease throughout the world. She is a role model in her office, giving hope to ordinary citizens who are floundering amid corruption by demonstrating that people who step over the line will be held accountable,” the judges said.
“Advocate Madonsela is helping to reimagine what good citizenship means in post-apartheid South Africa. She has reasserted the primacy of what is in the public interest and the predominance of the public sphere.”