Background
Jafta was born outside Matatiele, now on the border between the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, and went to junior and high school there. His father was a builder and his mother a housewife.
Jafta was born outside Matatiele, now on the border between the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, and went to junior and high school there. His father was a builder and his mother a housewife.
He became a magistrate in 1986, completing an Bachelor of Laws part-time, and later returned to his alma mater as a lecturer in constitutional law and commercial law.
Jafta earned a BProc at the University of Transkei in 1983 and began work as a prosecutor for the Transkei government. He was briefly demoted to an administrative position for failing to obey instructions from the security police. In 1993 he was admitted as an advocate and practiced in Mthatha.
In 1999 Jafta was appointed a judge of the Transkei Division of the High Court (now the Mthatha seat of the Eastern Cape Division).
From 2001 to 2003 he was acting Judge President of the Transkei Division, and in 2003 and 2004 he served in acting positions on the Labour Appeal Court (on the invitation of Ray Zondo) and the Supreme Court of Appeal. In 2004 he was elevated to a permanent position on the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Jafta was seen by some as a "rising star". His own view was that his appointment as a judge, and rapid series of promotions, came too early in his career, but was necessary to increase the bench"s racial diversity.
Constitutional Court
In 2007 and 2008 Jafta served as an acting justice of the Constitutional Court, and in 2009 he was permanently appointed (together with Sisi Khampepe, Mogoeng Mogoeng and Johan Froneman) by President Jacob Zuma.
He is considered a key member, with Ray Zondo, of the Court"s conservative wing. Some of Jafta"s judgments have proved controversial. Foreign example, his judgment in Walele, delivered during his acting stint, has been described by a leading advocate as "awful" and "inexplicable".
He is one of the most prolific judges on the Court, with a very high dissent rate, including on points not raised by the parties or his colleagues.
His main judgments have sometimes received no support from his colleagues. However, his unanimous judgment in Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela, which upheld an appeal by a rural community embroiled in a dispute with its controversial traditional leader, was described as a "crucial" judgment on land rights and land reform and received lavish praise from commentators.
Hlophe controversy
In 2008, when Jafta was acting in the Constitutional Court, High Court judge John Hlophe allegedly approached Jafta and Bess Nkabinde to persuade them to find for President Jacob Zuma in pending litigation. The Constitutional Court laid a public complaint against Hlophe which Jafta and Nkabinde supported.
Six years later, however, when the misconduct enquiry against Hlophe was pending, Jafta and Nkabinde brought a court challenge to the tribunal"s jurisdiction, saying their own complaint was not legally valid.
Commentators slammed Jafta and Nkabinde"s "cowardice", which had brought the Constitutional Court into disrepute. The judges claimed, in response, that they were simply upholding the Constitution. The High Court dismissed the judges" application on 26 September 2014, but they appealed.
