|
Personal details
Johann van der Westhuizen was born in Windhoek, in Namibia. He went to school there and in Pretoria, where he now lives.
Back | Top
Education
He received a BA Law cum laude from the University of Pretoria in 1973; an LLB cum laude from the University of Pretoria in 1975; and an LLD from the same university in 1980.
He received the Grotius medal - awarded by the Pretoria Bar Council to the University of Pretoria's best final-year law student - in 1975, as well as several other student prizes from 1971 to 1975.
Van der Westhuizen was also awarded several grants and bursaries for research in Europe; the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship in Germany (1982-1983, 1984, 1990-1991); and the Southern Africa Research Program fellowship at Yale University in the United States from 1991 to1992.
Back | Top
Professional history
Van der Westhuizen was admitted as an advocate in 1976.
He was the professor (from 1980 to 1998) and head (from 1980 to 1994) of the Department of Legal History, Comparative Law and Legal Philosophy in the University of Pretoria's Faculty of Law. He was the founding director of the university's Centre for Human Rights from 1986 to 1998 and joined the Transvaal Provincial Division of the High Court of South Africa in 1999.
He was an associate member of the Pretoria Bar (1989 to 1998) and a member of the National Council and Board of Trustees of Lawyers for Human Rights (1990 to 2001).
Van der Westhuizen has:
- taught jurisprudence, human rights, constitutional law, legal history, comparative law and Roman law at the University of Pretoria;
- lectured and acted as an examiner at several other South African universities;
- presented numerous lectures on human rights and constitutional issues to interest groups;
- researched criminal law, human rights and constitutional issues in Europe and the US;
- presented papers and lectures at conferences, universities and discussion groups in Germany, the US, Canada, west and southern Africa and South Africa; and
- co-taught an advanced course on the regional enforcement of the international human-rights system as a visiting lecturer in the Yale Law School.
He joined the Constitutional Court on 1 February 2004.
Back | Top
Other activities
Van der Westhuizen was intimately involved in the drafting of South Africa's final Constitution in 1995 and 1996: he was a member of the Independent Panel of Recognised Constitutional Experts, which advised the Constitutional Assembly, and was part of the Technical Refinement Team, responsible for the final drafting and editing process..
He convened task groups at the multiparty negotiating process in 1993, resulting in the adoption of the interim constitution and the Transitional Executive Council in 1994, and co-ordinated the equality legislation project of the Ministry of Justice and the South African Human Rights Commission in 1998.
He organised several conferences between 1984 and 1994 on human rights and related matters; participated in discussions with the then banned liberation movements in Dakar, Harare, Lusaka and New York; participated in seminars of the constitutional committee of the ANC; contributed to the human rights reports of the South African Law Commission; and participated in numerous radio and television programmes in the US, Germany, Canada, Japan and South Africa.
Van der Westhuizen was involved in human-rights litigation and argued numerous appeals against the censorship of socially and politically significant films such as 'Roots', 'Cry Freedom' and 'A Dry White Season'. He also acted as a consultant and in-house advocate for the Legal Resources Centre and Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria.
The judge has published numerous articles and has edited books on legal history, criminal law, jurisprudence and human rights, and has handed down several judgments in the High Courton on constitutional, criminal and private-law issues.
He has lectured and participated in several courses and seminars for new judges and magistrates, run by the Judicial Service Commission, the department of justice and the Justice College.
Van der Westhuizen is an honorary professor at the University of Pretoria and a member of the university's council, as well as the board of Trustees of its Centre for Human Rights.
Back | Top
|