Chris Jafta

The Honourable Chris Jafta
Justice of the Constitutional Court
Incumbent
Assumed office November 2009
Appointed by	President Jacob Zuma
Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal
In office October 2004 – October 2009
Appointed by	President Thabo Mbeki
Judge of the Transkei High Court
In office 4 January 1999 – October 2004
Appointed by	President Thabo Mbeki
Acting Judge of the Transkei High Court
In office May 1997 – December 1998
Appointed by	President Thabo Mbeki
Personal details
Born	1959 Matatiele, Cape Province
Alma mater	University of Transkei

Christopher Nyaole "Chris" Jafta (born 1959) is a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

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 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. He became a magistrate in 1986, completing an LLB part-time, and later returned to his alma mater as a lecturer in constitutional law and commercial law. 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.

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