CFP: Reckoning with the Past, Constitutional Transformation and Ubuntu: Conference to Honor the Work of Judge Margaret Victor

CALL FOR PAPERS 

RECKONING WITH THE PAST, CONSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION AND UBUNTU: CONFERENCE TO HONOR THE WORK OF JUDGE MARGARET VICTOR 

December 12 - 14, 2022 

University of Johannesburg 

Faculty of Law 

South Africa 

From December 12 to 14, 2022, the University of Johannesburg, in collaboration with the South Africa Reading Group, New York Law School, will host a conference to honor the work of Judge Margaret Victor, Johannesburg High Court, on her retirement.    

Specifically, we are interested in soliciting papers on the following subjects including, but not limited, to:

• The role of ubuntu in South Africa’s constitutional jurisprudence; 
• Reflections on the transformative potential of the South African constitutional project; 
• Transformation or decolonization of legal education; 
• The intersection of indigenous law and institutions in the constitutional project; 
• The role of corruption and its influence and/or impact on the constitutional project; 
• The influence of critical approaches and theories on the constitutional project, including non-racialism, liberalism, critical race theory, feminism, Marxism, African socialism, nationalism, and others; 
• Comparative perspectives on the South African constitutional project; 
• Reckoning with the past: racial reconstruction, reparations and/or reconciliation. 
  
  Please submit an abstract and a brief biographical statement of no more than 500 words to penelope.andrews@nyls.edu by Friday April 8^th, 2022, with the subject line “Victor Conference: Call for Papers.”   In your e-mail, please indicate whether your proposal is for a presentation only or if you plan to submit a paper based on your presentation for potential publication.    We are negotiating publication with a South African law journal. 
  
  The Conference program will befinalized on Friday May 6^th2022 and decisions e-mailed to participants.  
  
  Limited conference funding will be available for participants from Southern Africa.
• For queries please contact conference convenors: Professor Penelope Andrews, Director, Racial Justice Project, New York Law School  (penelope.andrews@nyls.edu) and Professor Wesahl Domingo, Executive Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Johannesburg at (wdomingo@uj.ac.za).

BIOGRAPHY - JUDGE VICTOR 

Judge Victor graduated from the University of Cape Town with a degree in Social Work and from the University of Kwa Zulu Natal with an LLB degree. 

She qualified as an Attorney and then went to the Johannesburg Bar to practice as an Advocate. In 2008, after spending 25 years as an Advocate at the Johannesburg Bar, she was appointed to the Johannesburg High Court of South Africa Gauteng Local Division based in Johannesburg.  Judge Victor acted and was then appointed to the Competition Appeal Court. In 2016 she served an Acting Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeal. From 2019-2021 she served as an Acting Justice of the Constitutional Court.  She was the scribe in the seminal judgment of Sylvia Mahlangu v Minister of Labour, where domestic workers for the first time were entitled to insurance for work related injuries and death. She incorporated and expanded fully into constitutional jurisprudence intersectionality based on race, gender and social origin.    

Judge Victor has been the Presiding Judge in many cases involving evictions and forfeitures of residential homes pursuant to foreclosures. In applying a judge’s oversight role, she has implemented what is fair and equitable to the unlawful occupier and the property owner. In cases involving the eviction of thousands of people from one piece of land, she utilized the legal tool of a structured interdict to bring about a just solution. She adjudicated in environmental law matters where the principles of the Constitution have been carefully applied. As an Acting Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeal, she was the scribe in  a constitutional matter involving the constitutional implications of poorly built houses for the City Council of Cape Town. ^[1] 

Her contributions outside of judicial adjudication include serving as Vice President of the South African Chapter of the International Association of Women judges. This position reflects the extensive work she has done mentoring aspirant judges, including mentoring women legal practitioners to strengthen their skills.   She has also mentored many law students as judge's clerks, including final year law students from the USA.  She has also had a long relationship with the former Law Society of the Northern Provinces, addressing attorneys of the Law Society on a range of topics. She has done skills training for lawyers at many winter workshops run by the Law Society.  

Judge Victor’s extensive litigation practice traversed many public interest matters, including a notable and long-running environmental law matter to assist a small marginalized community living in the shadows of an industrial mill, treason trial work, political cases defending young members of communities accused of public violence, and a range of civil matters.  She was the first woman to be elected to the Johannesburg Bar Council in the wake of the call for gender and racial transformation in their leadership structures. 

Her entire career has been focused on improving the lives of others. Her community work has included establishing a Montessori preprimary school for underprivileged children and during her 25-year career as an Advocate she has assisted many abused women with legal advice.In addition, she is a patron to the Child Welfare Society and has edited nine volumes of a Jungian poet that can be found on www.chatilloncoque.com. 

Judge Victor has been honored by the Johannesburg Bar for her contribution to South African law. 

[1] City of Cape Town v Khaya Projects (Pty) Ltd and Others (158/2015) [2016] ZASCA 107; 2016 (5) SA 579 (SCA)