Johann van der Westhuizen

Who is Johann van der Westhuizen?

Johann van der Westhuizen is a judge in the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He was appointed to the bench in 2004 by Thabo Mbeki. He was previously a professor a the University of Pretoria Faculty of Law and the founding director of the Centre for Human Rights. He currently sits on the board of the Centre for Human Rights and the University of Pretoria Council.

Johann Vincent van der Westhuizen was born in Windhoek, Namibia. He went to school there and in Pretoria, where he now lives.

He received the degrees BA Law cum laude in 1973, LLB cum laude in 1975 and LLD in 1980 from the University of Pretoria.

As a student he received several prizes, including the Grotius medal - awarded by the Pretoria Bar Council – as the best final-year law student. He was awarded several grants and bursaries for research in Europe and the United States of America, including the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship in Germany and the Southern Africa Research Program fellowship at Yale University.

Van der Westhuizen was professor and head of the Department of Legal History, Comparative Law and Legal Philosophy in the University of Pretoria's Faculty of Law.