Board of Trustees
The Board of SAIFAC comprises the following persons:
Chair: Emeritus Justice Laurie Ackermann
See Justice Laurie Ackermann Profile on the Constitutional Court website >>>
Justice Edwin Cameron, Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal
Edwin Cameron studied at Stellenbosch, Oxford and the University of South Africa, winning top academic honours at all three universities. He was called to the Johannesburg Bar in 1983, and from 1986 practised as a human rights lawyer at the University of the Witwatersrand's Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), where in 1989 he was awarded a personal professorship in law. While at CALS, he among other things co-drafted the Charter of Rights on AIDS and HIV; and founded the AIDS Law Project. He remains actively involved in a number of HIV/AIDS related initiatives.
In October 1994 President Mandela appointed him an Acting Judge of the High Court to chair a Commission into illegal arms deals. He was appointed permanently to the High Court in 1995. Since 1998, he has chaired the Council of the University of the Witwatersrand. In 1999/2000 he served for a year as an Acting Justice in the Constitutional Court before being appointed permanently to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Edwin Cameron has co-authored a number of legal and other books, including Defiant
Desire – Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa and Honoré's South African Law of Trusts. He has received many awards and distinctions. These include Honorary Fellowships of Keble College, Oxford and of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies, London; the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights (2000); Transnet's HIV/AIDS Champions Award and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Excellence in Leadership Award (2003). In 2002 the Bar of England and Wales honoured him with a Special Award for his contribution to international jurisprudence and the protection of human rights. In 2007 he was awarded the Prize for Civil Courage of the German gay and lesbian movement by the federal Minister of Justice in the German government, Ms Brigitte Zypries.
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Justice Arthur Chaskalson, former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court
See Justice Arthur Chaskalson's Profile on the Constitutional Court website >>>
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Prof. Karthy Govender, School of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Karthy Govender is Professor of Law at the University of KwaZulu-Natal
Natal, where he teaches constitutional and administrative law. He is also a
Commissioner at the South African Human Rights Commission. He has legal
academic qualifications from the univeristies of London, Natal and Michigan.
After qualifying as a barrister in England, he passed the South African bar
examinations in 1993. He is now an associate member of the Durban Bar, and
has been involved in a number of constitutional cases.
Before joining the South African Human Rights Commission in March 1996,
Prof. Govender was a member of the KwaZulu-Natal Town and Regional Planning
Commission, and also assisted in the drafting of the provincial
constitution. At the SAHRC, he takes responsibility for KwaZulu-Natal and is
a member of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. He serves on
both the mediation and arbitration panels of IMMSSA and has published and
spoken widely on constitutional and administrative law.
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Prof. Christof Heyns , Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
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Prof. Sandra Liebenberg, Harry Oppenheimer Professor of Human Rights Law, University of Stellenbosch
PROF. SANDRA LIEBENBERG currently holds the H.F. Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law in the Law Faculty of the University of Stellenbosch. She holds a BA LLB degree from the University of Cape Town, and a LLM degree in Advanced Human Rights Law (with distinction) from the University of Essex. She is admitted as an attorney of the High Court of South Africa.
She previously served as a member of the Technical Committee advising the Constitutional Assembly on the Bill of Rights in the 1996 Constitution of South Africa.
She founded and directed the Socio-Economic Rights Project based at the Community Law Centre (University of the Western Cape) where she was involved in research, advocacy and supporting litigation in the area of socio-economic rights. In this capacity she was involved in the Centre’s amicus curiae interventions in the groundbreaking cases of Government of South Africa v Grootboom, Minister of Health and Others v Treatment Action Campaign and Others, and President of the RSA and Another v Modderklip Boerdery (Pty) Ltd, and, recently, City of Johannesburg v Various Occupiers.
She serves on the editorial board of the South African Journal on Human Rights, the African Human Rights Law Journal, and Speculum Juris. She is also currently Treasurer of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE). Her field of specialisation is socio-economic rights, and she has published widely in this field.
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Justice Tholie Madala, a judge of the Constitutional Court
See Justice Tholie Madala's Profile on the Constitutional Court website >>>
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Prof. Christina Murray, Department of Public Law, University of Cape Town
Christina Murray is Professor of Human Rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Cape Town. She is currently head of the department of public law and Deputy Dean of the Law Faculty. Between 1994 and 1996 she served on a panel of seven experts advising the South African Constitutional Assembly in drafting South Africa's 'final' Constitution. Since then most of her work has focused on constitution making, constitutional design and the implementation of new constitutions, particularly, of course, South Africa’s. In South Africa most of this work has been with the national Treasury (implementing the fiscal elements of the new decentralized system of government) and with the national Parliament and nine provincial legislatures. Work elsewhere includes Kenya, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Southern Sudan and Bolivia. Amongst her most recent published work is a book, edited with Michelle O’Sullivan: Advancing Women’s Rights: the first decade of democracy (2005) and papers on traditional leadership, federalism and international relations in South Africa, the executive under South Africa’s constitution and ethnicity in South Africa’s constitutional design.
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Prof. Vincent Nmehielle, School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand
Vincent Nmehielle is an Associate Professor in the School of Law. He joined the School in 2002 and held the Bram Fischer Chair in Human Rights Law, until February 2004. Prior to joining the University of the Witwatersrand, he was a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria in addition to private legal practice and other activities from where he went on academic leave to the United States. In the United States he worked briefly as a Research Associate with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights; he was a Rule of Law Fellow at the International Rule of Law Center of the George Washington University Law School; a Legal Editor for LexisNexis, North American Legal Markets, a division of Reed Elsevier, PLC; and International Law Counsel in the law Firm of Amorow & Kum in Maryland. Professor Nmehielle specializes in International and Comparative Law. He teaches and researches in the areas of Introduction to Constitutional Law, Introduction to Human Rights Law, International and Regional Human Rights Law, International Organizations, International Dispute Resolution, International Environmental Law, and Human Rights and the Marketplace. He has a particular interest in African discourse, especially the African Union and New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which flow out of the recent African renaissance initiative. Professor Nmehielle taught at the George Washington University and University of Oxford Human Rights Program in 2003 and 2004. He serves on the board of a number of Africa-centered Non-Governmental Organizations and is currently on leave from Wits University to the Special Court for Sierra Leone where he serves as the Principal Defender of the Special Court.
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Prof. Nasila Rembe, Oliver Tambo Chair of Human Rights, University of Fort Hare.
Prof. Nasila Rembe is currently Chair Holder of the UNESCO ‘Oliver Tambo’ Chair of Human Rights at the University of Fort Hare, a position he has held since establishing the center in 1994. Prof. Rembe attended the University of Dar Es Salaam where he majored in Public International Law, Jurisprudence, Human Rights Law and Development. He received his doctorate at the University of Wales in Cardiff where he specialized in Public International Law and later became a lecturer.
For over seven years Prof. Rembe was a Faculty of Law Professor with the National University of Lesotho and at Ohio State University where he taught Human Rights and Public International Law. During this time, he founded and was editor-in-chief of the Lesotho Law Journal. Prof. Rembe has also held numerous professional appointments. Among them include member, jury for the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education; Convenor, UNESCO Chairs in Southern Africa; member, Fair Labour Association NGO Advisory Council (FLA); and member, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA).
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