Sir Johannes Gysbertus Blanckenberg Kotze, KCMG

Sir John Gilbert Kotze (~ 23 December 1849, Darling and named Johannes Gybertus Blankenberg Kotzé) was Judge President to Paul Kruger, President of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (Transvaal Republic) at the outbreak of the South African War 1899-1902. He, together with the rest of the High Court, was unceremoniously dismissed by Kruger following a dispute. He later sat as Judge President on the bench of the High Court of the Cape of Good Hope progressing to the Appeal Court still later. He married Mary Amelia Bell on 17 April 1872 in Holy Trinity Church, Clapham. He died in 1940.

KOTZE, John Gilbert, LL.B., K.C, was born at Leeuwenhof, C.T. on Nov. 5, 1849. He is the youngest son of the late P. J. Kotze, who was Member for C.T. in the House of Assembly, and was twice Major of that city. Judge Kotze was educated at the S.A. Coll. ; took the degree of LL.B. at the London Univ. in Jan. 1873, and was called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple on April 30, 1874. He practised at the Bar of the Supreme Court, C.T., and of the Eastern Districts Court at Grahamstown ; was appointed Judge of the High Court of the Transvaal Province during the period of British annexation on May 19, 1877, which appointment he held until the retrocession of the country in Aug,1881 ; was appointed one of the Commissioners under the Pretoria Convention to investigate and compensate claims for losses and injuries sustained during the first Boer War, and became Chief Justice of the late S.A.R., August 9, 1881. He was Chairman of the Board of Examiners in Literature and Science of that State from 1890-98, and was created a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the immaculate Conception by H.M. the King of Portugal in May 1896, in recognition of his services in the late Transvaal Republic. In consequence of his judgment in the case of Brown v. Leyds, in which he held that a Volksraad resolution could not override the Grondwet or Constitution of the country, and because he refused to renounce the right of testing the proceedings of the Executive and Volksraad by reference to the Grondwet, he was summarily and illegally dismissed from office as Chief Justice by ex-Pres. Kruger in Feb. 1898. He was appointed Attorney-Gen. of Southern Rhodesia with a seat in the Executive and Legislative Councils of that territory, Aug. 1900; acted as Administer of Southern Rhodesia during the absence of Sir William Milton, K.C.M.G. from May to Oct. 1902 ; and was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, April 15,1903. Mr. Kotze, together with the late Mr. Frederick Jeppe, edited the Transvaal Statute Book 1845-1885. He has also edited three volumes of reports of cases decided by the High Court at Pretoria 1877-88, and has translated into English, from the original Dutch, Simon Van Leeuwen's Commentaries on Roman Dutch Law in 2 vols, royal 8vo. He married, in 1872, Mary Aurelia, dau. of the late Daniel Bell of Milton House, Clapham, Surrey.

from: The Anglo-African Who's Who AND Biographical Sketch-Book EDITED BY WALTER H. WILLS and R. J. BARRETT 1905

Memoirs and Reminiscences - Sir john Gilbert Kotze (Successively Chief Justice of the High Court of the South African Republic, Judge-President of the Eastern districts Court of the Cape Colony, Judge-President of the Cape Provincial Division of the Supreme Court and Justice of the Appellate Division of the Supreme court of South Africa - Volume 2 - Prepared for the press with an introduction by B.A. Tindall Justice of the Appellate Division and formerly Judge-President of the Transvaal Provincial Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa - Maskew Miller

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gilbert_Kotz%C3%A9