Just before the end of 2017, and while South Africa almost came to a halt during the Christmas holidays, an extremely important ruling almost passed unnoticed. Chief Justice Mogoeng delivered the majority ruling in Afriforum’s leave to appeal in the case on the University of the Free State’s language policy. He did so without having heard any oral arguments and dealt simply with the documents before the court. He and seven (black South African) judges denied the leave to appeal, and Judge Froneman and two other (white South African) judges differed in a minority ruling.