Jameelah Omar
Bio
Dr Jameelah Omar is an Associate Professor in the Public Law Department at the University of Cape Town, with an LLB, LLM (Criminal Justice) and PhD (UCT). She is the Deputy Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the Law Faculty at UCT (term started January 2024).
Dr Omar joined the UCT Law Faculty in 2015. Her research focuses on criminal procedure, substantive criminal law, and sexual offences. She lectures undergraduate criminal justice courses in the LLB. At postgraduate level she convenes and lectures a specialised course on Sexual Offences, and supervises research students at LLM and PhD levels. Dr Omar is also the convenor of the Faculty’s Community Service programme, a degree requirement for all LLB students. She is the recipient of the 2024 UCT Distinguished Teacher Award, the highest teaching accolade at the University.
Dr Omar was awarded her PhD in 2023, which focuses on the adversarial nature of the criminal justice system and the impediments it poses to complainant participation in the criminal process. Her recent publications include a monograph published with Routledge, titled The Structural Exclusion of Rape Complainants in South Africa’s Criminal Justice System: Justice through Participation; a co-authored book chapter titled ‘Women’s bodies: Autonomy and freedom and security of the person’ in Albertyn and Bonthuys Gender, Law & Justice (Juta); and an article in the South African Journal of Criminal Justice, titled ‘Clarity, consistency and community convictions: understanding the defence of consent in South African criminal law’.
Dr Omar serves on the Editorial Board for the South African Journal on Human Rights (Editor-in-Chief from July 2026) and the Board of Trustees of the Women’s Legal Centre. She has appeared as an expert witness in sexual offence cases litigated in the High Court and the Constitutional Court of South Africa; and has advised, reviewed and designed policies for schools and civil society organisations to improve processes for responding to sexual harassment and violence cases.
Dr Omar’s prior work history includes working as a researcher at the Institute of Criminology (now the Centre of Criminology) at UCT while completing her LLM in criminal justice. She then completed articles at Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs Incorporated in Johannesburg. Thereafter, as a practising attorney, she formed part of the Rule of Law Programme at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) at the University of the Witwatersrand, specialising in prisoners’ rights, particularly remand detainees, and access to information. While at Wits, she was part of the Inquiry team into Sexual Harassment at the University of the Witwatersrand, and is also a co-author of that inquiry's published report.
Expertise/ Research Interests
Criminal Justice, Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law, Sexual Offences, Sexual Violence