Max du Plessis | |
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 Du Plessis at a 2016 University of Cape Town symposium | |
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Max du Plessis SC is a South African barrister and academic. He specialises in international, administrative and constitutional law and has worked South Africa and England. His practice is based in Durban.
Du Plessis completed Bachelor of Laws (B.luris and LLB) at the University of South Africa and University of Natal respectively. He went on to graduate with a Master of Laws (LLM) from the University of Cambridge and pursue PhD studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. [1] He became a senior research fellow in the International Crime in Africa Programme at the Institute for Security Studies. [2]
Du Plessis has been practicing since 2000. [3] He became an advocate at the High Court of South Africa. In 2007, du Plessis was a visiting expert on the International Criminal Court. [4]
Currently, du Plessis is an adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela University. He was an associate professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he taught a masters course on Current Legal Issues: The Politics of Law, and where he is still a research fellow. Du Plessis has also been a visiting professor at Oxford University, Cambridge University, Harvard Kennedy School, the London School of Economics, the University of Sydney, and New York Law School. [5]
Du Plessis joined the KwaZulu-Natal Bar, receiving his silk in 2018. [6] He is a member of Ubunye Chambers, a group of advocates in Umhlanga, [3] and as of 2024, a full tenant at Doughty Street Chambers in London, where he is a member of Lincoln's Inn. [7] In addition, du Plessis is an associate tenant at Thulamela Chambers in Johannesburg. He was also an associate fellow in international law at Chatham House.
Anton Katz and Max du Plessis represented Australian professor Kenneth Good upon his expulsion from Botswana for criticising the government in the 2010 Good vs Botswana case at the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR), who ruled in Good's favour. [4] [8]
Du Plessis acted as Lead Counsel on behalf of Mozambique's Forum for Monitoring the Budget (FMO) in the Tuna Fishing Boats Affair regarding former finance minister Manuel Chang's extradition to the United States. [9] In 2022 and 2023, du Plessis, on behalf of the Campaign for Free Expression, argued in court that former President Jacob Zuma's attempts to prosecute journalist Karyn Maughan amounted to a SLAPP lawsuit. [10]
In 2023, du Plessis acted for South Africa's opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA) to secure a declaratory order from the country's High Court that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be arrested if he arrived in South Africa for the BRICS Summit. [11] [12]
In January 2024, du Plessis appeared in the Hague as a member of the legal team representing South Africa's proceedings accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). [13] [14] [15]
Du Plessis lives in Ballito [3] with his spouse Jo and their three children: two daughters and a son. [6]
Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu was the King of the Zulu nation from 1968 to his death in 2021.
The University of KwaZulu-Natal is a university with five campuses in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. It was formed on 1 January 2004 after the merger between the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville.
The University of Natal was a university in the former South African province Natal which later became KwaZulu-Natal. The University of Natal no longer exists as a distinct legal entity, as it was incorporated into the University of KwaZulu-Natal on 1 January 2004. It was founded in 1910 as the Natal University College in Pietermaritzburg and expanded to include a campus in Durban in 1931. In 1947, the university opened a medical school for non-white students in Durban. The Pietermaritzburg campus was known for its agricultural engineering programmes, hence the nickname "the farmers" whilst the Durban campus was known as "the engineers," as it concentrated on other engineering programmes.
Doughty Street Chambers is a British set of barristers' chambers situated in Bristol, Manchester and London's Doughty Street, undertaking criminal justice, public law, immigration, employment, human rights and civil liberties work.
Thembile Lewis Skweyiya was a South African lawyer and judge who served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa between February 2004 and May 2014. He rose to prominence as a civil rights lawyer during apartheid and he served three years in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court before his elevation to the Constitutional Court.
Johann Vincent van der Westhuizen is a South African who served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February 2004 to January 2016. He was a professor of law at the University of Pretoria from 1980 to 1999, when he joined the bench as a judge of the High Court of South Africa.
Bhekokwakhe "Bheki" Hamilton Cele has been the South African Minister of Police since February 2018. He was National Commissioner of the South African Police Service for two years, until misconduct allegations led to his suspension in October 2011 and removal in June 2012. He has also served as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, on the KwaZulu-Natal Executive Council, and in the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature. He is a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, and was imprisoned on Robben Island during apartheid.
Pius Nkonzo LangaSCOB was Chief Justice of South Africa from June 2005 to October 2009. Formerly a human rights lawyer, he was appointed as a puisne judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa upon its inception in 1995. He was the Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa from November 2001 until May 2005, when President Thabo Mbeki elevated him to the Chief Justiceship. He was South Africa's first black African Chief Justice.
Professor Barend van Niekerk was a South African acclaimed jurist, a campaigning legal academic and a prominent human rights and anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1970s and early 1980s. This "maverick law professor" was prosecuted twice by the South African state prosecutor and privately sued once, all such actions being based on his supposed contempt of court. He was indeed a fearless critic of the apartheid legal system, in particular of the judiciary's racial bias in setting death penalties, but also of imprisonment, torture and solitary confinement; freedom of speech; and the role of the judiciary.
Edward Senzo Mchunu is a South African politician currently serving as Minister of Water and Sanitation since 5 August 2021. A member of the African National Congress (ANC), he was formerly the Minister of Public Service and Administration from 30 May 2019 to 5 August 2021 and the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal from 22 August 2013 until 23 May 2016.
Leona Valerie Theron is a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Before her elevation in July 2017, she served in the Supreme Court of Appeal between December 2010 and June 2017. She is the first Coloured judge to serve in the Constitutional Court.
Bongani Christopher Majola is an advocate of the High Court of South Africa, an academic, human rights scholar, and the previous Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). He currently serves as the chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission.
Shamila Batohi is a South African prosecutor. She has led the National Prosecuting Authority as National Director of Public Prosecutions since February 2019. She was formerly an adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court from 2009 to 2019.
The 2021 South African unrest, also known as the July 2021 riots, the Zuma unrest or Zuma riots, was a wave of civil unrest that occurred in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces from 9 to 18 July 2021, sparked by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma for contempt of court. Resulting protests against the incarceration triggered wider rioting and looting, much of it said to be undertaken by people not in support of Zuma and fuelled by job layoffs and economic inequality worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic policies. The unrest began in the province of KwaZulu-Natal on the evening of 9 July, and spread to the province of Gauteng on the evening of 11 July, and was the worst violence that South Africa had experienced since the end of Apartheid.
Events in the year 2023 in South Africa.
Thoba Portia Poyo-Dlwati is a South African judge who is currently serving as the Judge President of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court. She joined the court as a puisne judge in June 2014 and was elevated to the judge presidency in January 2023, appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa as the division's first female judge president.
Mokgere Busisiwe Shareen Masipa is a South African judge of the High Court of South Africa. She was appointed to the KwaZulu-Natal Division in July 2016 after 14 years as a practising attorney in Durban. She is an expert on labour law.
Adila Hassim is a South African advocate. She rose to international prominence as a member of the legal team in the South Africa vs. Israel case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January 2024.
Sarah Farley Pudifin-Jones is a South African advocate, legal academic, and musician.
Jeremy John Gauntlett SC, KC is a British–South African lawyer who practises public and commercial law. He entered legal practice as an advocate in Cape Town in 1976 and was admitted to the Bar of England and Wales in 1994. In addition to his chambers in Cape Town and Johannesburg, he is a tenant at Brick Court Chambers in London.
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