Northern Cape High Court dismisses appeal over Judge Mokogoro’s electronic will

DAVID Mmelesi, the life partner of late Constitutional Court Judge Yvonne Mokogoro, intends to approach the Supreme Court of Appeal directly after the Northern Cape High Court dismissed an application to invalidate an electronically signed will that excludes him from inheriting her assets. 

Mokgoro left two wills, where the one drafted in 2014 bore her handwritten signature bequeathing her share of the estate of her Magersfontein Golf Estate property and a Jeep Wrangler entirely to her life partner, David Goalatlhwe Mmelesi. The remainder of her estate was to be distributed amongst her children and granddaughter.

Her son, Ithatheng Mokgoro, discovered a second will, which was signed electronically in 2021, that stipulated that the Kimberley property should be shared equally among her four children, with the Jeep Wrangler to be given to Mmelesi.

Advocate Boitumelo Babuseng, the legal representative for Mmelesi, argued that the electronically signed will was not signed in pen and was not recognised in terms of the Wills Act.

He believed that the matter should be ventilated in the Supreme Court of Appeal as the provisions of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (ECTA)  had not received prior judicial consideration and that the issue was "new and novel". 

Electronic will is valid 

In his judgment, Judge Lawrence Lever pointed out that the signature was appended electronically in the 2021 will.

“A  copy of the said will was recovered from an independent financial broker - Capital Legacy Fiduciary Services (Pty) Ltd that had stored the said document in electronic form.” 

Lever stated that the 2014 will left Mokgoro’s share of the property at the Magersfontein Golf Estate to Mmelesi, compared to the 2021 will, where the share of the house was to be shared between her children and granddaughter.

In an earlier judgment in August 2025, Lever ruled that the electronically signed document constituted a valid last will and testament. 

He was not convinced that there was any reasonable prospect that another court would arrive at a different conclusion.

“It is true that the exact facts and circumstances have not been judicially considered, but it is merely an application of the provisions of the Wills Act, where the requirements necessary to establish the necessary jurisdictional facts were either conceded, not contested or otherwise established. In other words, such jurisdictional facts were not controversial in the court a quo. They are also not controversial now.” 

Lever was unable to identify any special circumstance or compelling reason or basis why the matter should be referred for an appeal under the Superior Courts Act.

He ordered Mmelesi to pay the legal costs.