Sir John Gilbert Kotzé KC (5 November 1849 – 1 April 1940) was an eminent South African jurist. Early life Kotzé was born in Cape Town and was given the Christian names of Johannes Gysbert Blanckenberg, but he used the anglicized form, John Gilbert. He was educated at Tot Nut van het Algemeen and the South African College in Cape Town. His father was Petrus Johannes Kotzé, who owned the Leeuwenhof estate at the foot of Table Mountain and represented Cape Town in two Parliaments, as a member of the House of Assembly, and was twice Mayor of Cape Town. His brother, Rev J.J. Kotzé (older by 17 years), studied for the Church. It was recorded he was a distinguished student at Utrecht, where he graduated summa cum laude and shared the distinction of being the best classical scholar at the University. The earlier written records of the Kotzé family in Germany date back as far as the year 1234 and indicate the family is of noble descent. The spelling of the family name (in Africa) changes from Kotzee as reflected last in 1912 (in the document Master of the Supreme Court re: Johannes Albertus Kotzee) to finally Kotzé in 1916 (in the hand of Salmon Jacobus Petrus Kotzé). Kotzé undertook further legal training in Britain as a student at the Inner Temple in London, where he met his wife Mary Aurelia Bell. Kotzé became a barrister of the Inner Temple and practised in Cape Town and Grahamstown from 1874 to 76. Judicial career Kotzé was appointed judge of the High Court of the Transvaal in 1877, becoming Chief Justice in 1881. He, together with the rest of the High Court, was unceremoniously dismissed by Paul Kruger following a dispute – as a result of his judgement in the case over mining rights. Kotze had stood in 1893 as a rival to Kruger in the presidential elections and was seen by Kruger as his long term political rival. Kruger, on this particular occasion, was enraged at the judgement of the High Court in the case of Brown v. Leyds and he dismissed Chief Justice Kotzé in 1898 as President Kruger held his own opinion on the case outcome. The circumstances surrounding this judgement are worth exploring as they are illustrative of the Legal and general state of public administration in the Transvaal at the time during the British Rule and