Dr. Kate O Regan

Biography

Kate O'Regan is the inaugural Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and a former judge of the South African Constitutional Court (1994 – 2009). In the mid-1980s, she practiced as a lawyer in Johannesburg in a variety of fields, especially labor law and land law, representing emerging trade unions and members of communities threatened with eviction under apartheid land laws. In 1990, she joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where she taught a range of courses including race and gender law, labor law, and civil procedure. Her fifteen-year term on the South African Constitutional Court ended in 2009. Since then, she has served as an ad hoc judge on the Supreme Court of Namibia (2010 - 2016) and was chairperson of the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into allegations of police inefficiency and a breakdown of trust between the police and the community in Khayelitsha (2012 – 2014). She is also a member of various advisory boards and bodies of NGOs working in the fields of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and equality.

Research Interests