Advocate Reagan Jacobus (1981)
Media Release
concerning the passing on of Advocate Reagan Jacobus (26.11.1958 - 7.2.2011)
ON MONDAY 7TH FEBRUARY 2011, South Africa lost one of its distinguished sons. Reagan Jacobus lost his protracted battle with cancer on that sad day and passed away.
Born in Marabastad on 26th November 1958, Reagan went on to matriculate at Eesterus Senior Secondary School in 1975. He read for his BA (Law) at the University of the Western Cape and completed it in 1980. He obtained his LL.B at Rhodes University in 1982. Reagan proceeded to obtain his first LL. M in jurisprudence at the University of California Los Angeles in 1984 as a Fulbright scholar, and became a fellow at law at the Legal Resources Centre in Johannesburg.
Reagan pursued articles of clerkship with a firm of attorneys in Johannesburg. Aided by a British Council Scholarship for postgraduate study, Reagan obtained a second LL. M in labour law at the London School of Economics in 1987. Between 1987 until 1990, Reagan served as a Senior Research Officer in the Labour Law Project at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Reagan was admitted as an advocate in 1988 and appointed as a panelist of the Independent Mediation Services of South Africa (now Tokiso Dispute Settlement). He served as senior lecturer in law at the then University of Durban-Westville (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal) from 1992 until 1996, and was a leading member of the Combined Staff Association. From 1993 until 1996 Reagan also served as an additional member of the Industrial Court.
The years 1996 until 2002 saw Reagan serving as Vice Principal at the then Technikon Natal. He practised full-time as an advocate of the High Court of South Africa from 2003, and became Deputy Chairperson of the KwaZulu-Natal Bid Appeals Tribunal in 2005. Reagan served on the Bar Council of the Society of Advocates of KwaZulu-Natal and was Chairperson of the Durban Chapter of Advocates for Transformation. He served on the governing body of Westville Boys High School from 2006.
Reagan played bowls as a member of the Hillcrest & Westville Bowling Clubs and he obtained his colours and played as a Springbok bowler.
Reagan Jacobus served with distinction in the diverse roles he played in his short lifetime: as advocate, jurist, educator, unionist, university administrator, sportsperson, husband, father, friend, activist, revolutionary and a human being with a magnificent capacity for living life to the full. In his own words, he was not:
“…a pure lawyer. I wasn’t just a lawyer. I had other work that I had to do which was really political work…”
[LRC Oral History Project, interview with Reagan Jacobus, 10th September 2008, at page 13].
Reagan was a revolutionary socialist, and his ideas were shaped and profoundly influenced by the thinking which led to the Soweto Uprising and broadened and deepened by his participation in reading groups belonging to the genre of the Fourth International.
Reagan is survived by his partner Pat Moodley and his son Jarreth. May his life and works be a beacon to us all…
