Room 6.28 - Kramer Law Building

Catherine Willis-Smith is a lecturer in the Department of Public Law at UCT, specialising in Criminal Law. She was an ad hoc lecturer at UCT and a junior lecturer at Stellenbosch University before joining the UCT Law Faculty on a permanent basis in 2026. Prior to lecturing, she worked as an undergraduate teaching assistant and thereafter as a postgraduate teaching assistant at UCT, where she completed both her LLB and LLM (by coursework and minor dissertation). 

Her research interests lie in the field of criminal justice. She wrote her Master’s dissertation on the doctrine of common purpose and will register for her PhD in Criminal Law in 2026.  Her PhD intends to consider the potential expansion of criminal liability for omissions in South Africa, specifically the failure to rescue another person, where one is in a position to provide aid. Other topics she is interested in researching include the protection of child witnesses in criminal trials, the capacity of accused to understand the proceedings in criminal trials (s 77 of the Criminal Procedure Act) and the history of confessions in South Africa. She also hopes to pursue research in the area of animal law in the near future. 

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