Arthur Chaskalson SCOB,was President of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from 1994 to 2001 and Chief Justice of South Africa from 2001 to 2005. Chaskalson was a member of the defence team in the Rivonia Trial of 1963.
The Constitutional Court of South Africa is a supreme constitutional court established by the Constitution of South Africa,and is the apex court in the South African judicial system,with general jurisdiction.
LourensWepener Hugo "Laurie" Ackermann is a South African retired judge who served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa from 1994 to 2004. Appointed to the inaugural court by Nelson Mandela,he is best known for his jurisprudence on dignity. He was formerly an academic,a practising advocate,and a judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa.
Brigitte Sylvia Mabandla is a South African politician,lawyer and former anti-apartheid activist who served in the cabinet of South Africa from 2003 to 2009,including as the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development from 2004 to 2008. She became the South African Ambassador to Sweden in January 2020. A veteran of the African National Congress (ANC),she was an elected member of party's National Executive Committee between 1997 and 2012.
Navanethem "Navi" Pillay is a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. A South African of Indian Tamil origin,Pillay was the first non-white woman judge of the High Court of South Africa. She has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008 and was extended an additional two years in 2012. In September 2014 Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad succeeded her in her position as High Commissioner for Human Rights. In April 2015,Pillay became the 16th Commissioner of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty. She is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders.
Tholakele Hope "Tholie" Madala was a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa between October 1994 and October 2008. He was appointed to the court by Nelson Mandela upon the court's inception. Before that,he practised as a human rights lawyer in the Transkei,taking silk in 1993,and served briefly in the Mthatha Supreme Court in 1994. He retired from the bench in 2008.
Catherine "Kate" O'Regan is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. From 2013 to 2014 she was a commissioner of the Khayelitsha Commission and is now the inaugural director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford.
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.
Zakeria Mohammed "Zak" Yacoob is a retired South African judge who served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February 1998 to January 2013. He was appointed to the bench by Nelson Mandela and retired after serving the maximum 15-year term. Before he joined the bench,he was a practising advocate and an anti-apartheid activist.
Pius Nkonzo Langa SCOB was Chief Justice of South Africa,serving on the Constitutional Court. He was appointed to the bench in 1994 by Nelson Mandela,he became Deputy Chief Justice in 2001 and was elevated as Chief Justice in 2005 by Thabo Mbeki. He retired in October 2009. He served as the Chancellor of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University from 2006 to 2010. He died in 2013 at the age 74 and following a long illness.
The Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria Faculty of Law,South Africa,is an organisation dedicated to promoting human rights on the continent of Africa. The centre,founded in 1986,promotes human rights through educational outreach,including multinational conferences,seminars and publications such as Human Rights Law in Africa,The African Human Rights Law Journal,the African Human Rights Law Reports and The Constitutional Law of South Africa. The centre,which was founded during Apartheid,assisted in adapting a Bill of Rights for South Africa and contributed to creating the South African Constitution. In 2006,the centre received the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education,particular recognising for the LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa and the African Human Rights Moot Court Competition.
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.
Mandisa Muriel Lindelwa Maya is the Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa. She was formerly the President of the Supreme Court of Appeal from 2017 to 2022. She joined the bench in May 2000 as a judge of the Transkei Division of the High Court of South Africa and was elevated to the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2006.
Solome Balungi Bossa is a Ugandan judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC). Prior to her election to the ICC,she was a member of the Court of Appeal in Uganda,which also doubles as the Constitutional Court in the Judiciary of Uganda. She was elected to a nine-year term on 5 December 2017 and was sworn in on 9 March 2018. Previously she was appointed to a six-year term on the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights in 2014.
Motlalepula Ziphora Rosho is a South African politician. A member of the African National Congress,she was elected deputy speaker of the North West Provincial Legislature in 2010. In 2012 she was appointed as the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Economic Development,Environment,Conservation and Tourism in the North West Provincial Government. Rosho was discharged from the executive council in 2014 and then served in the provincial legislature as a committee chairperson until December 2018,when she returned to the executive as MEC for Local Government and Human Settlement. Rosho was appointed as MEC for Finance after the 2019 elections.
Mashangu Monica Leeuw is a retired South African judge who was Judge President of the North West High Court from 2010 to 2022. She was the first woman to serve as a judge president in the High Court of South Africa.
Annali Christelle Basson is a South African judge of the High Court of South Africa. She was appointed to the Gauteng Division in January 2016 after serving in the Labour Court from 2007 to 2016. Before her appointment to the bench,she was a legal academic at the University of South Africa,where she specialised in labour law and mercantile law. She was an acting judge in the Constitutional Court in 2018 and was shortlisted for permanent appointment to that court in 2019.
Pierre J. J. Olivier was a South African jurist and judge who served in the Supreme Court of Appeal from 1995 until his death in 2003. He was an advocate and silk in Bloemfontein until he was appointed to the bench in 1985 as a judge of the Orange Free State Provincial Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa. Before entering legal practice,he taught law at the University of Pretoria from 1961 to 1969 and at the University of the Orange Free State from 1969 to 1973;he specialised in private law.
