MVUSIWEKHAYA SICWETSHA | The vindication of Oscar Mabuyane

When the University of Fort Hare abruptly announced the deregistration of Eastern Cape Premier Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane in March 2021, the court of public opinion was instantly flooded with sensationalism, hyperbole, and premature condemnation.

As Mabuyane’s spokesperson at the time this administrative storm first broke, I stood at the frontline of the media onslaught. Day after day, I reiterated a simple, unyielding truth: the premier had acted entirely in good faith, and the university’s heavy-handed decision was a textbook case of unfair, irrational, and deeply prejudiced treatment.

Today, we no longer have to rely on political arguments or press statements to make this point. The law has spoken definitively, shattering the narrative built by institutional overreach.

In the Bhisho high court, Judge Rusi delivered a resounding judgment in the case of Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane v The University of Fort Hare, declaring Mabuyane’s deregistration not only unlawful but constitutionally invalid. The judgment is a stinging rebuke of UFH’s administrative failures and fully validates what the premier has maintained from day one: he was targeted through a distorted, backwards process that denied him the most basic right to a fair hearing.

The core constitutional failure

At its heart, this case was always about the abuse of administrative power and the erosion of foundational democratic principles by an institution entrusted with shaping the minds of the nation. In the judgment, Judge Rusi was right when she said: “One of the greatest treasures of a democratic state is the respect, that those who are endowed with the powers to govern in all its various facets, accord to the rule of law.”

Yet, respect for the rule of law is precisely what was missing when the university moved behind closed doors to strip Mabuyane of his student status.

In its own version, the university admitted it did not afford Mabuyane an opportunity to make representations before making the decision on March 12 2021 to deregister him. They claimed that because he did not possess an Honours degree, they were completely absolved of the duty to hear his side of the story.

The court completely decimated this arrogant stance. Citing the principle of audi alteram partem (hear the other side), Judge Rusi noted that a person can only have a meaningful opportunity to make representations if they know the substance of the case against them.

The judgment pulls no punches on the university’s backwards attempt to offer an “appeal” after already passing judgment, stating that “the decision could not ex post facto be sanitized of unlawfulness by the invitation it subsequently extended to the applicant to present evidence to controvert the alleged irregularity of his admission".

A blatant, irrational double standard

What makes Fort Hare’s conduct even more egregious is the blatant double standard applied to Mabuyane compared to other students in the exact same position. The court record has now laid bare an “artificial” distinction that the university tried to manufacture to justify its institutional hostility.

The FRHDC (Faculty Research and Higher Degrees Committee) meticulously reviewed other Master’s students who lacked Honours degrees, explicitly noted their undergraduate qualifications and requested the department to provide evidence of their work experience under the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) policy.

Yet, when it came to Mabuyane, who had openly submitted his extensive managerial and public sector CV alongside his three-year B.Com degree, the university completely refused to evaluate his prior learning path. They threw him out of the system solely because he lacked an Honours degree, while keeping the other students enrolled.

Judge Rusi cut right through this hypocrisy when she said in the judgment: “The two students did not possess the Honours degrees or any of the other alternative minimum requirements which General Rule 15.2 stipulates. This fact notwithstanding, the committee concluded that they met the ’2017 No. 2′ admission requirements.”

She was right to “come to the conclusion that the distinction sought to be drawn in order to explain why the RPL was not considered by the FRHDC when reviewing the applicant’s admission is artificial. The irrationality complaint must accordingly be upheld”.

Victims of institutional breakdown

The university’s defense becomes entirely untenable when you look at the admissions made by its own vice-chancellor, Professor Sakhela Buhlungu’s acknowledgement of systemic breakdown.

They acknowledge that Mabuyane acted entirely in good faith when he submitted his application to three separate administrative committees, which all endorsed and processed his registration. Yet, rather than fixing their internal governance with the sensitivity and fairness required by law, UFH chose to launch a heavy-handed, politically charged assault on a high-profile student to cover their own administrative tracks. As Judge Rusi beautifully articulated, for less fortunate students, this kind of institutional failure renders the constitutional right to higher education entirely “illusory”.

Moving forward under equal protection

Mabuyane has never asked for special treatment; he has only ever demanded equal protection under the law. Section 9(1) of the Constitution guarantees everyone equality before the law, and as the court rightly noted, this matter concerns Mabuyane in his capacity as a student, not as a premier.

The court’s remedy is both just and equitable. By declaring the deregistration invalid and remitting the matter to be reviewed afresh, the judgment firmly forces Fort Hare to do what it should have done five years ago: receive and formally assess the evidence of Mabuyane’s prior learning with the procedural fairness he is legally owed.

This judgment is a massive victory for accountability and a total vindication for Mabuyane. It proves that institutional prejudice, no matter how loudly backed by media sensationalism, cannot withstand the scrutiny of constitutional justice. Fort Hare must now humble itself, abandon its selective prosecution, and finally handle this matter through the proper legal channels it so callously bypassed.

• Sicwetsha writes in his personal capacity.