South Africa's Constitutional Court upheld the Valoyi community's choice of Tinyiko Shilubana as its first woman Hosi in 2008

Hosi Fofoza Nwamitwa, chief of the Valoyi traditional community in Limpopo, died on 24 February 1968 without a son. Succession followed male primogeniture, so his eldest daughter, Tinyiko Shilubana, was passed over and his younger brother Richard became Hosi. On 22 December 1996, with Hosi Richard taking part, the Valoyi Royal Family resolved that under the new Constitution a daughter could be heir, and conferred the chieftainship on Ms Shilubana. On 17 July 1997 Hosi Richard acknowledged her as heiress before the Chief Magistrate and 26 witnesses. A letter he wrote on 25 February 1999 was read by the lower courts as withdrawing that support. He died on 1 October 2001. The Royal Family confirmed Ms Shilubana again, and the province approved her appointment from 22 May 2002. Richard's eldest son, Sidwell Nwamitwa, interdicted her inauguration set for 29 November 2002. The Pretoria High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal found for him. On 4 June 2008 the Constitutional Court, in a unanimous judgment by Van der Westhuizen J, reversed both. It held that traditional authorities may develop their own customary law, and that Mr Nwamitwa had no vested right to be Hosi. Ms Shilubana was installed at Nwamitwa village near Tzaneen on 4 September 2008. She died in a Johannesburg hospital on 9 February 2026, aged 85, and received an official provincial funeral at the Valoyi Cultural Village on 22 February 2026. No successor was named in the sources checked^†.