Justice Nicholas Ohsan Bellepeau is not the kind of judge who seeks headlines or shapes arguments with theatrical flair. He is no Johnnie Cochran. He does not need to be. His reputation was built quietly, over decades of judicial service, marked by discipline, restraint and a refusal to politicize the bench. Now, his appointment as Inspector in the AfriNIC affair may be the most consequential of his career. He carries more than a legal file. He carries the weight of continental scrutiny and the cautious hope of a digital community in crisis. From Dakar to Cape Town, from Montevideo to Manila, regional Internet registries are watching. So are policymakers and civil society advocates. In a case where trust has eroded and procedure has been bent, Bellepeau is expected not to perform, but to restore.
Named to the Supreme Court in 2016 after nearly two decades of legal experience, Bellepeau carries a reputation for balance and restraint. He is also the son of Monique Ohsan Bellepeau, the former Vice President and acting President of Mauritius. His personal biography commands respect, but what sets him apart now is institutional trust. Senior judges and legal scholars alike describe him as a man beyond influence, a rare quality in a system increasingly accused of proximity to power.This is not the first time Bellepeau has crossed paths with the AfriNIC case. In 2021 he was part of the early panel that resisted efforts to fast-track legal orders in the dispute between Cloud Innovation and the registry. That decision to let the matter proceed in full court reflected a judicial instinct rooted in process over pressure.
Now Bellepeau returns, this time with a different mandate. Appointed under Proclamation, he is tasked with investigating the conduct of AfriNIC under receivership. The registry has been under court control since 2023. The Receiver, Mr Gowtamsingh Dabee, was expected to steer the institution toward recovery and credible elections. Instead, he has authorized procedural changes that appear to contradict the bylaws. Outsiders have been enlisted as electoral overseers. Internal staff are involved in nomination processes. Key elements of community governance have been sidelined.
Compounding the institutional unease is the presence of Abdool Raouf Gulbul, counsel for Cloud Innovation, whose wife Rehana Bibi Mungly Gulbul currently serves as Chief Justice. While she has not presided over the case, she has co-authored judicial decisions with Bellepeau in previous high-profile matters. The connections are legal, not conspiratorial, but in a fragile environment they fuel further skepticism. What comes next rests on the Inspector’s ability to separate institutional truth from political theatre. The law gives him powers to follow the money and examine the records. The public expects more than that. It expects someone to hold the line.
The Inspector steps into legal labyrinth
Justice Nicholas Ohsan Bellepeau arrives at a moment of institutional fatigue. His appointment as Inspector of AfriNIC signals not only a turning point but also a rare chance to reclaim the law from the margins of a long-running dispute. His personal reputation precedes him. Colleagues within the judiciary describe him as precise, incorruptible, and slow to spectacle. He is not a man of loud pronouncements. He is known for his steady jurisprudence and his refusal to bend under pressure. In a legal system bruised by political interference, his name still commands respect.
But the field he steps into is anything but neutral. AfriNIC, the body tasked with managing Internet number resources for the continent, has been under court-ordered receivership since 2023. The hope then was that legal supervision would enable restoration. What followed instead was deeper paralysis. The man entrusted with stabilizing the institution, Gowtamsingh Dabee, became its most problematic figure.
Instead of paving the way for a representative and rules-based reset, Dabee presided over a landscape where community participation eroded further. He suspended elections, then restarted them on terms that bypassed the very bylaws he was meant to uphold. He sidelined member consultation, introduced external law firms into internal election mechanics, and kept the community in the dark while power remained centralized in his own office. Institutional decisions were made with neither transparency nor accountability. Bylaws were treated not as binding principles, but as vague suggestions.
ICANN has repeatedly cautioned that AfriNIC may now be acting without legitimacy. Letters addressed to Dabee point to fundamental flaws in the electoral process. Among them, the unauthorized use of voter lists, access by third parties to confidential data, and procedural violations that risk compromising the outcome of any future board. More than a warning, the letters read like a ledger of what has gone wrong under his watch.
The Inspector now stands before a structure whose formal functions have continued, but whose credibility has evaporated. He is not called to administrate. He is called to restore a broken legal order. The law has not merely been stretched. It has been selectively applied to serve a continuity of control rather than a return to institutional balance.
Justice Bellepeau’s mission is not only to investigate. It is to ask the questions many feared to voice. Was receivership used to delay reform? Has the office become a sanctuary for quiet power rather than an engine for recovery? And can a registry that no longer follows its own constitutional instruments claim to serve a community?