Frans Kgomo

Nare Frans Kgomo, a retired judge of the Limpopo Division of the High Court of South Africa, died on 19 September 2026. He was 75. Chief Justice Mandisa Maya, speaking through the Office of the Chief Justice, expressed deep sadness on behalf of the Judiciary and extended condolences to his family, friends and former colleagues.

Born on 13 November 1950, Kgomo entered the Department of Justice after completing his degree studies in 1974. His early career took him through many of the roles that keep courts running. He served as a public prosecutor, as sheriff and messenger of the court, as a court interpreter and as a clerk of the court. He later sat as a magistrate for about six years before entering legal practice. That path from the court offices to the magistracy and then to private practice gave him what the Office of the Chief Justice later called a wealth of institutional knowledge.

He was appointed a judge of the Gauteng Division of the High Court on 1 July 2008, according to the Office of the Chief Justice. While based in Gauteng he was regularly sent on circuit to Limpopo and Mpumalanga. National attention came in 2010 when, sitting in the Johannesburg High Court, he heard the murder trial arising from the killing of mining magnate Brett Kebble. In November that year he dismissed the murder and related charges against Glenn Agliotti under section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Act, finding that the state had not made out a case for Agliotti to answer. Contemporary reports quoted him describing a world of corrupt officials and politically connected figures moving in the shadows of organised crime.

In April 2015 the Judicial Service Commission shortlisted him among candidates for inaugural Judge President of the new Limpopo Division. He was not appointed; the post went to Ephraim Makgoba, under whom Kgomo had worked as a young attorney. A year later he was shortlisted for Deputy Judge President of Limpopo and again not appointed. Those interviews were contentious, including criticism of comments he made about women lawyers and questions about how his nomination had been prepared.

On 28 November 2016 he was appointed to the Limpopo Division of the High Court, where he served until his discharge from active service on 1 October 2022. The Judiciary remembered him for a long life in public service, from the court offices where he began to the Bench he later occupied. His passing, the Office of the Chief Justice said, would be deeply felt by colleagues, the legal profession, court officials and all whose lives he touched.