INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed scholar and constitutional law expert Professor Shadrack Gutto has died.
The family announced that the scholar and lecturer of African Renaissance Studies at the University of South Africa (Unisa) died at his home in Joburg on Friday, 13 October. He was 72 years old.
“It is with heavy hearts that we announce that our dear father Professor Shadrack Billy Otwori Gutto passed away on the 13th of October,” his family said in a statement.
“Although he was in poor health for much of the last decade, including bravely overcoming cancer, his passing is sudden and unexpected.”
Gutto was the founding director of the Centre for African Renaissance Studies at Unisa.
Unisa principal and vice chancellor Professor Puleng LenkaBula described Gutto as “a magnanimous intellectual” and a Pan African to the end.
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“Gutto was a public intellectual whose expertise included constitutional law, human and people’s rights, land reform as well as politics,” she said.
She said his brilliance was also evident in his roles as consultant to many governments, including the Organisation of African Unity.
“The Unisa community will remember him as a loyal servant who served the university in various capacities, including full professor and director of the erstwhile Centre for African Renaissance Studies (2003 -2011), a member of the Unisa Senate and Senate Executive Committee (2006-2012).
"Professor and co-ordinator of the Unisa Programme in the Management of Democratice Elections in African (2011) as well as Academic Planner and Coordinator of the South African government-Unisa-Southern Sudan government’s Human Capacity and Institution-Building Project (2004-201),” said LenkaBula.
