Announcing the Pius Langa Memorial Fellow at UCL for 2024 - 2025, Nina Lang

The Constitutional Court Trust has recently awarded fellowships for the 2024 - 2025 academic year.

The Pius Langa Memorial Fellowship, funded by the South African Constitutional Court Trust - United Kingdom, was established in 2021 to provide one early career lawyer who has clerked at the Constitutional Court or is working in civil society in South Africa to study towards an LLM at University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom, one of the top ranked universities in the world.

Nina Lang has been awarded the Pius Langa Memorial Fellowship for 2024 – 2025. She is currently working as a law clerk at the Constitutional Court to Justice Theron and Acting Justice Dodson. Prior to her appointment to the Constitutional Court, she worked as a teaching assistant in the Department of Private Law at the University of Cape Town (UCT). While working at UCT, she volunteered at Ndifuna Ukwazi, an organisation which advocates for spatial justice, and conducted research for Judge Lagrange, a Judge of the Labour Court.

She obtained her LLB cum laude from UCT and also holds a Bachelor of Science in Genetics and Anatomy and Physiology. Nina’s future aspirations are to work as a practitioner or researcher at a civil society organisation in South Africa. She has a particular interest in Family Law, Public Law and Human Rights Law and is interested in diverse opportunities which will further her knowledge and understanding of these areas.

Nina describes what she is hoping to achieve through the fellowship:

“I am overjoyed to be a Pius Langa Memorial Fellow and to complete an LLM at University College London, one of the best law schools in the world.

One of the first readings I was assigned in my LLB was a lecture by the late Chief Justice Langa on transformative constitutionalism. This inspired my early thinking as a lawyer, and it continues to influence my work and thinking today. In his lecture, Chief Justice Langa describes the law as an instrument that has the power to transform our society and create a better future. I share these views and hope to use the law to effect social change, dismantle injustice and help reconstruct a more egalitarian society. I want to contribute to the protection and promotion of human rights in South Africa. An LLM at UCL specialising in Human Rights Law or Public Law will help me achieve this.

I cannot wait to embark on this journey and am so grateful for the opportunity.”