Judge Mahomed Navsa will preside over today's Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) hearing between the DA and President Jacob Zuma.
The president wants the SCA to agree to his right to appeal a finding last year that 783 counts of corruption, fraud and racketeering against him should be reinstated.
The case has meandered through various courts for eight years now and it has come before Navsa previously -- he expressed concern on that occasion at prolonged litigation.
Navsa is a highly regarded and experienced judge. He has been an acting judge of the Constitutional Court and was for many years the chairperson of the Legal Aid Board.
At a lecture at Stellenbosch University earlier this month, he quoted Pope Francis when he said that it was the poor who suffered most from corruption. His lecture focused on the Constitution and its various provisions against corruption and maladministration. He said that corruption diverted resources from the poor and had a corrosive impact on democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Navsa set his gavel against corruption in the private sector in his lecture. In previous judgments, he put the crooked Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown away for 15 years and ruled that environmental plans of corporates should be public documents. In another case before him, he put former SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng through his paces.
Navsa is known for his judicial activism for social justice and for a wickedly sharp judicial tongue.