Sechaba Mohapi

Date of Call: 04/12/2017

Before his call to the Bar, Sechaba was a Law Researcher at the Supreme Court of Appeal from 1 October 2014 until 25 January 2017.

He obtained his LL.B degree from the North West University and was awarded a distinction for his LL.B dissertation titled “Leave to Appeal and its impact on the Right to Appeal”. He contributed two articles to the South African Attorneys’ Journal, the De Rebus setting out an attorneys’ checklist for applications for leave to appeal to the SCA.

Sechaba was previously admitted as an attorney of the High Court of South Africa, during which time he cut his teeth in Magistrates Court litigation at one of the largest firms in Bloemfontein where he served corporate and private clients. He subsequently became a Supreme Court of Appeal Practice Area Manager at that same firm from October 2011 until March 2014 during which time he specialized in correspondent work on appeals to Supreme Court of Appeal.

Sechaba was part of the Evidence Leader team of the Commission of inquiry into allegations of impropriety at the Public Investment Corporation in 2019.

He is a GCB certified advocacy training teacher and a member of the Editorial Committee of the GCB publication the Advocate.

Sechaba’s has a general commercial practice that includes insolvency and business rescue, contract law, company law, securities law, banking and finance law and public law work that includes mining law, medical regulatory law and administrative and constitutional law work.

For leisure, Sechaba reads and collects legal (auto)biographies and is interested in judicial matters and he immerses himself in legal history. He serves on the Johannesburg Bar Council’s Judicial Candidates Review Committee.

Sechaba appeared in the following notable matters:

• Riversdale Mining Limited v Du Plessis and another, [2017] JOL 37550 (SCA)
• Sasol Oil (Pty) Ltd v Commissioner for SARS [2019] 1 All SA 106 (SCA);
• Hlophe v Freedom Under Law In re: Freedom Under Law v Hlophe; Moseneke and Others v Hlophe In re: Hlophe v Judicial Services Commission and Others 2022 (2) SA 523 (GJ);
• Hlophe v Judicial Service Commission and Others [2022] 3 All SA 87 (GJ);
• Hospital Association of South Africa v Head of Department, KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health and others [2022] 2 All SA 831 (KZP);
• Wescoal Mining (Pty) Ltd and Another v Mkhombo NO and Others 2024 (2) SA 563 (GJ);
• Democratic Alliance v Hlophe and Others, and Similar Matters 2025 (1) SA 169 (WCC);
• Democratic Alliance v Hlophe and Others, and Two Other Matters 2025 (5) SA 166 (WCC);
• Mashwayi Projects (Pty) Ltd and Others v Wescoal Mining (Pty) Ltd and Others 2025 (3) SA 441 (SCA);
• IPA Foundation (NPC) v South African Pharmacy Council [2026] 1 All SA 41 (SCA).

Sechaba has contributed the following publications:

• ‘Maintaining appearances: Court dress an enduring rule of etiquette’ Advocate (Apr 2025) 40-50.
• ‘Why Judges have a legitimate interest in briefing patterns’ Advocate (Aug 2024) 59-65.
• ‘Law clerks’ origins and their duties’ (2022) 5 (1) SA Judicial Education Journal 99-140.
• South African Chapter in GLI Litigation & Dispute Resolution 6ed (2017) 258-67.
• ‘O Son of Man, Can these bones live?: The need to resurrect the Commercial Court’ Advocate (Dec 2018) pp 52-56.
• ‘Revised checklist for leave to appeal to the SCA’ De Rebus (Apr 2015).