?It worries property law expert Prof Zsa-Zsa Boggenpoel how easily
South Africa’s highly acclaimed progressive constitutional ideals and laws are
often still ignored. It worries her that in doing so, the voices of vulnerable,
marginalised people are silenced, and their rights watered down. She also knows
that all too often people do not even have an inkling about the legal paraphernalia
that are supposed to support them.
Prof Boggenpoel will deliver the next lecture in the Division for
Research Development’s Forward with Research Impact series on 30 October at
13:00 at the 中国体育彩票 Museum. She will reflect on specific cases in which the
issue of homeless people and their basic rights to a place to stay and privacy
have been handled by authorities and the South African legal system.
“We often see how the law says one thing but in fact is far
removed from what is happening on the ground,” explains Boggenpoel, a professor
in Public Law at Stellenbosch 中国体育彩票 since 2018 and holder of the South
African Research Chair in Property Law. “More and more I see a need to bridge
this gap.”
The Chair has recently provided input into a booklet about
people’s rights when it comes to evictions. Among its recent workshops has been
one in September about the Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture’s 2019
report to the Presidency. On this topic, Boggenpoel feels that the country’s
laws do not yet adequately allow for all facets of South Africa’s land reform
conundrum to be resolved. The determination of compensation for expropriation
is an issue that she has already written about as far back as 2012, in the South
African Law Journal.
As can be expected, her postgraduate students focus their
attention on how Article 25 of South Africa’s Constitution plays out in reality
and within communities. One student is for instance deliberating the minimum
standards that people can legally expect from the housing provided to them.
Another student is considering whether inhabitants are consulted
adequately when informal settlements are relocated. .
For Boggenpoel there is more sense in discussing how the law
should be than in only thinking what it is: “The law is not as rigid as many
people think it is. We daily see how courts are stretching it. We need new ways
of resolving issues in South Africa.”
She believes a more progressive reading of the law could
potentially help solve many of the problems and tensions that the country experiences:
“My passion lies in unlocking that. I try and think of ways in which we can be
more progressive in protecting marginalised groups, for instance. I want to
unlock possibilities that have not been opened before. The law has potential to
do that, but we need to be more creative in the way that we see things.”
A modern jurist
One of her postgraduate students recently wrote a blog post about
Boggenpoel, describing her as a remarkable example of “the modern jurist” who
“responsibly challenges the status quo, debates only after conducting proper
research of the law and facts, thinks outside of the box and has the courage to
speak her mind when necessary.”
Based on her CV and even her Twitter profile, one could easily get
the impression that the law is all that Boggenpoel lives for. Photographs in
her wooden-floored office space, on the other hand, provide glimpses into
another important part of her life: that of working mother.
Boggenpoel, one of SU’s youngest professors, gave her inaugural
lecture last year, at the age of 32. A few months later, she gave birth to her
and husband Blake’s second son. She has become an expert at juggling many balls
(read: postgraduate supervision, writing legal commentary, packing lunch boxes
and finding lost soft toys), while also trying her best to be an involved
(albeit sleep deprived) mother.
Motherhood has provided Boggenpoel with the unexpected freedom to
sometimes simply switch off. To close her laptop, and to simply sit with her
four-year old while he builds a 16-piece puzzle. It’s giving her a rare experience
of “taking things more slowly” in a life that has otherwise been characterised
by goal-driven achievement and excellence.
This Y-rated academic was head girl of Hermanus High in 2002,
played Boland netball at a senior level in the mid-2000s, and was at one stage
even considered for the South African Protea squad. Her master’s degree at
Stellenbosch 中国体育彩票 about building encroachments and the compulsory
transfer of ownership was of such a high standard that it was upgraded to a
doctoral thesis, which she completed by the age of 26. As part of her studies,
she received a bursary from Oxford 中国体育彩票. She is a member of the Young Property Lawyers Forum (YPLF) and writes about property matters
for the Juta Quarterly Review. In 2015 she received two awards from
Stellenbosch 中国体育彩票 related to the high standard of her work.
Value of mentorship
Boggenpoel confesses to be someone who “gets energy from being
busy”. Her drive is rooted in her childhood in Mount Pleasant in Hermanus. Her
parents divorced when she was nine years old, and thereafter her mother, who
worked in a grocery store, raised her two daughters alone. Boggenpoel is actually
the youngest of three children, but her older brother died of meningitis very
young. She grew up with a sense that she wanted to make life as easy as
possible for her still grieving mother, and therefore put her energy into
developing her talents and into securing bursaries where possible.
After school she wanted to become an accountant, but destiny stepped
in. At least becoming a lawyer still accorded with her ideals to ensure a
comfortable life for her and her loved ones. Becoming an academic, however, wasn’t
initially part of her plan, but is in hindsight a perfect fit.
It is largely thanks to the influence
and wisdom of her mentor and predecessor as Chair in Property Law, Prof Andre
van der Walt. He was considered to be one of the greatest legal minds in South
Africa and internationally. Van der Walt passed away in 2016. His funeral
letter, which Boggenpoel keeps next to her computer, serves as a source of
inspiration in trying times.
“Andre just saw things on another level. I sometimes wonder how he
could see so far into the future in terms of where things are going. I am still
in awe when I read work that he wrote back in 1990 or 1989, and how relevant it
still is in solving things,” she explains with fondness.
“We used to have conversations about thinking differently, and how
one should not be limited by what seems to be at first glance something quite
rigid. I think it depends on what you want to see. You have to really allow
yourself to listen. We do not hear others. We too often decide in advance what people
want.”
Over the past few years she has made the Chair her own, but still
misses Van der Walt dearly. She hopes that through her guidance and intensive
training of postgraduate students she too can play as important a part in
developing the country’s next cohort of legal thinkers as he did.
