Acting judge post for Gamalakhe’s Lihle

Thembalihle Sidaki from Gamalakhe was recently reappointed for a second term as an Acting Judge of the Cape Town High Court.

Sidaki matriculated from Port Shepstone High in the early 90s. After school, he enrolled as a part-time law student at Unisa.

Retired Chief Magistrate Johann Bester recalls Barry, Botha and Breytenbach Attorneys alerting him to the keen student, who was spending a considerable time in their law library.

“At the time, I was the Chief Magistrate of Port Shepstone Magistrate’s Court and when a vacancy in the administrative section arose, I invited Sidaki for an interview. I arranged for his appointment as a clerk in the process section of the clerk of the criminal court.”

Sidaki, known fondly as Lihle, passed the first year of his law studies well, and Bester then arranged for him to attend lectures at the Justice Training College in Pretoria for the greater part of every year.

“By the time he acquired his first law degree, he had already been trained in every aspect of the criminal court process and started prosecuting in the district court. He later transferred to the regional court where he prosecuted before Claude Downing and myself in Port Shepstone, Harding and Kokstad courts,” said Bester.

He was promoted to the rank of senior public prosecutor in Khayelitsha and then to state advocate in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Cape Town.

There, he met and married Bronwen, a senior state advocate. They have two children.
Sidaki later started practising as an advocate at the Cape Town Bar, and then was later appointed as an Acting Judge of the Cape Town High Court.

“Attorney Paul Preston and I are very proud of Lihle and what he has achieved. So should our South Coast community be,” said Bester.

Preston predicted Sidaki would be a judge more than 25 years ago, as he was an exceptional jurist, serious minded and diligent.

Sidaki worked under Preston when he was a senior prosecutor for the Southern KwaZulu-Natal region.
Preston said Sidaki, during his time in Sheppie, was mentored by Chris Moodley, a kind and competent senior admin clerk, who died too soon from cancer, and Ruben Judnarain, who is still a specialist prosecutor, and also Magistrate Derek Winter.

“As soon as he qualified I threw him into the deep end, in court on his own, he took the responsibility well and was also supported by the older prosecutors without exception,” said Preston.

Sidaki flourished in the serious crimes court, and when he later worked in the Kokstad Regional Court, his work ethic and commitment led him to secure convictions in some brutal murder and rape cases.

“He went on to have the best conviction rate of any prosecutor between Hibberdene and Matatiele. He had good technical knowledge and no attorney or advocate could ever intimidate him,” said Preston.

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