Call for Papers

Prospective speakers are invited to engage with the theme from a range of disciplinary perspectives and using doctrinal, theoretical, empirical, comparative or other suitable approaches. Papers might address specific topics relating to the following (non-exhaustive) list of subthemes:

•    The future of constitutional democracy and the rule of law / the separation of powers.
•    The legislature, electoral systems, democratic participation and the future of constitutional democracy.
•    Executive power (hard or soft), accountability and the future of constitutional democracy.
•    Judicial independence, the judicial role and the future of constitutional democracy.
•    Administrative justice and the future of constitutional democracy.
•    Populism, nationalism, fundamentalism and the future of constitutional democracy.
•    Private disruption of public power in a constitutional democracy.
•    Identifying and upholding the unwritten norms, values and cultures that sustain constitutional democracy.
•    The role of integrity institutions and other public-law bodies, including the public service, in supporting constitutional democracy.
•    Public law as a bulwark against the erosion of individual, indigenous or community rights, including socio-economic rights.
•    Constitutional democracy for future generations: environmental law, climate change, climate litigation. 
•    The intersection of international law and public law.
•    Technology and the risks and benefits to constitutional democracy.
•    Restricting protest, speech or dissent and the impact on democratic participation.
•    The expansion of punitive state power and the erosion of constitutional democracy: surveillance, incarceration and militarised policing.
•    The ways in which race, class and spatial inequality shape public law, including the experience of the criminal justice system.

Submission of Abstracts

Prospective speakers are invited to submit an abstract of no more than 500 words addressing any aspect of the conference theme. Abstracts must be submitted via the Oxford Abstracts electronic system, open from Monday 1 September 2025 until Monday 8 December 2025. You will be informed by early February 2026 whether your abstract has been accepted for presentation. Please submit your abstracts by following the Oxford Abstracts link here.

Abstracts are invited from those at any career stage. Papers will be accepted on the basis of merit and fit with the conference theme. Those who have their abstracts accepted will be required to submit a full written paper by Friday 15 May 2026 for distribution in advance to conference delegates. Please note that speakers will have to meet their own expenses and pay the conference fee in the ordinary way.

Limited funding will be available to subsidise intending speakers resident in Africa who face financial challenges in attending the conference. Speakers in this category may apply for assistance on acceptance of their abstract. Regrettably, such funding cannot be assured.

In common with previous conferences, it is intended that an edited collection will be published by Hart Publishing, the conference sponsor, of a small selection of papers given at the 2026 conference.

Doctoral Students

Like previous conferences, the 2026 conference will include dedicated panels for doctoral students. A reduced fee or, it is hoped, a fee waiver will apply to doctoral students whose papers are accepted.

Richard Hart Prize

The Richard Hart Prize for the best paper by an early-career scholar will be awarded at the 2026 conference. Those who are eligible and wish to be considered for the prize should indicate this by ticking the relevant box in the electronic application system. The eligibility criteria are as follows:
Anyone who (a) is studying for, but who has not yet been awarded, a doctoral degree in Law; or (b) was awarded a doctoral degree in Law on or after 1 July 2023; or (c) was appointed to their first full-time academic position on or after 1 July 2023. No person who has held a full-time academic position for more than three years as of 1 July 2026 shall be eligible for the prize. The conference convenors’ decisions as to eligibility shall be final. Please note that the prize will be awarded on the basis of the full written papers submitted in advance of the conference. 

For queries about the conference, please email the organisers at publiclawconference2026@gmail.com. 

The draft programme is available HERE. 

Please keep an eye out for updated versions and the final version as the conference draws near.

Chief Justice Mandisa Muriel Lindelwa Maya began her legal career as an attorney’s clerk, court interpreter, prosecutor, and state law adviser before joining the Transkei Bar as an advocate in 1994. She was appointed to the Mthatha High Court in 2000, later serving in various acting judicial roles including the Labour Court, Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court of Namibia, and the Court of Appeal in Lesotho. In 2006, she became a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), where she went on to make history as the court’s first woman Deputy President (2015) and first woman President (2017–2022) of the SCA. She was appointed Deputy Chief Justice in 2022 and, in September 2024, became South Africa’s first female Chief Justice.

Em Justice Albie Sachs began his legal career defending individuals charged under apartheid’s repressive laws, which led to repeated arrests, solitary confinement, and eventually exile. In the 1980s, Justice Sachs worked with Oliver Tambo to draft the ANC’s Code of Conduct and helped shape proposals for a democratic South African constitution. Returning to South Africa in the 1990s, he served on the ANC’s National Executive and Constitutional Committees, contributing to the negotiations that established South Africa’s constitutional democracy. In 1994, President Nelson Mandela appointed him to the Constitutional Court, where he became known for his progressive judgments, including the ruling that recognised same-sex marriage. A key figure in shaping South Africa’s post-apartheid transition, Sachs is the author of numerous books and continues to share lessons in justice, memory, and healing.

Justice Venkataramiah Nagarathna began practicing law in 1987 at KESVY & Co., Advocates, before starting independent practice in July 1994. She worked across a wide range of areas, including administrative, constitutional, commercial, and family law, and represented the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority and High Court Legal Services Committee, also serving as Amicus Curiae in selected cases. She was appointed Additional Judge of the Karnataka High Court on 18 February 2008 and became a Permanent Judge on 17 February 2010. During her tenure, she held leadership positions including President of the Karnataka Judicial Academy and President of the Bangalore Mediation Centre. She contributed to the Supreme Court publication, Courts of India, chairing the committee for its Kannada translation released in April 2021, and was elevated as Judge of the Supreme Court of India on 31 August 2021.

Chief Justice Martha K. Koome is the 15th Chief Justice and President of the Supreme Court of Kenya, having assumed office on 21 May 2021. She began her legal career after admission to the roll of advocates in 1987, practising for fifteen years in conveyancing, commercial, civil, criminal, and family law. She joined the Judiciary in 2003 as a High Court Judge, serving as Resident Judge in Nakuru and Kitale and as Head of the Land and Environment Division. She was appointed a Senior Judge of the Court of Appeal, where she headed the Criminal Division and chaired committees that developed Practice Directions and the Registry Manual. She holds an LLB from the University of Nairobi, a Postgraduate Diploma in Law from the Kenya School of Law, and an LLM from the University of London. Throughout her career, she has held leadership roles in professional and community organisations, including FIDA Kenya, the Law Society of Kenya, and the East African Law Society, and she participated in drafting the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. As Chief Justice, she chairs the Judicial Service Commission, the National Council on the Administration of Justice, and the National Council for Law Reporting.

Justice Richard Goldstone (born 26 October 1938) graduated BA LLB cum laude from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1962. He practised as an advocate before being appointed Senior Counsel in 1976, a judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court in 1980, and to the Appellate Division in 1989. He chaired the Goldstone Commission (1991–1994), served on the Constitutional Court (1994–2003), and was chief prosecutor of the UN tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (1994–1996). He later led or served on several international inquiries and committees, including on Kosovo and terrorism, and contributed to UN and international legal initiatives. He has held numerous academic and advisory roles, including visiting professorships in the US, and has served on boards of human rights organisations. He was Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand (1995–2007) and remains active in legal, educational, and human rights work.

Justice Steven Arnold Majiedt is a current Justice of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of South Africa. He was appointed in 2019, leaving his seat at the Supreme Court of Appeal, where he was first appointed in 2010. Prior to this, Justice Majiedt was an advocate at the Northern Cape Society of Advocates, before his first judicial appointment at the Northern Cape High Court in Kimberley in 2000. Justice Majiedt’s practising career was characterised by significant political work, and his ethos is primarily centred on advocating for the voiceless. During Justice Majiedt’s time as a judge he has ruled on matters both complex and controversial – ranging from international criminal law to the interpretation of statutory licensing requirements.

Professor Antony Anghie qualified as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria and practised law in Melbourne, Australia before commencing his graduate studies at Harvard Law School, where he earned his S.J.D degree and was appointed as a Senior Fellow in the Graduate Program. He then taught at the S.J. Quinney School of Law, University of Utah, where he served as the Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law. He has served in different capacities on the governing bodies of the Asian Society of International Law since its founding, and was a principal organiser of the Society’s biennial Conference in Beijing in 2011. He delivered the Grotius Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law in 2010. He has been a visiting professor at numerous schools including the American University Cairo, Cornell Law School, the London School of Economics, Harvard Law School and the University of Brasilia.

Professor Paul Daly joined the Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) at the University of Ottawa in July 2019, where he was named to the University Research Chair in Administrative Law & Governance. Professor Daly’s award-winning bilingual scholarship in the broad field of public law (especially administrative law) has appeared in leading academic journals and edited collections. Dozens of his publications, including posts on his blog Administrative Law Matters, have been cited more than 150 times by courts around the common law world, in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel and New Zealand. Fluent in English and French, he is a regular speaker at academic conferences, judicial and administrative training seminars and continuing legal education events. He has also appeared as counsel in many Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, in precedent-setting cases in public law. Prior to his appointment at uOttawa, Professor Daly was a faculty member at the University of Cambridge and the Université de Montréal and has held visiting positions at Harvard Law School (visiting researcher), Université Paris II — Panthéon-Assas (visiting professor), Louvain Global College of Law (visiting fellow) and Trinity College Dublin (visiting fellow). Since September 1, 2019, he is a part-time member of the Environmental Protection Tribunal of Canada. Most recently he has served as Scholar in Residence at the Law Reform Commission of Ireland.

Professor Jason N. E. Varuhas (BA LLB Hons, Victoria University of Wellington; LLM, University College London; PhD, University of Cambridge) is Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne and currently serves as Senior Crown Counsel at the New Zealand Crown Law Office, advising and representing the government on constitutional and human rights matters. He is the Director of the Public Law Conference, Senior Research Fellow at the New Zealand Centre for Public Law, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. Professor Varuhas has published widely on administrative law, human rights, constitutional law, torts, and remedies, and his work has been cited by the higher courts of Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Ireland. He has contributed to law reform, including English judicial review procedures, and led public engagement initiatives such as Melbourne Law School’s “Conversations About the Voice” series. Previously, he was Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School, Junior Research Fellow at Christ’s College, Cambridge, Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, and Judge’s Clerk to Justice Mark O’Regan, New Zealand Court of Appeal. He has held visiting and fellowship positions at Yale University, Oxford, McGill University, and Cambridge, and authored numerous books and treatises.

Professor Joel Malesela Modiri is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Jurisprudence at the University of Pretoria. He holds an LLB cum laude and a PhD from the University of Pretoria, with his doctoral thesis titled The Jurisprudence of Steve Biko: A Study in Race, Law and Power in the ‘Afterlife’ of Colonial-apartheid. He has lectured at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Pretoria, where he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2018. Professor Modiri teaches in the fields of Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy, convening the LLM/MPhil in Law and Political Justice, and has taught courses in Social Justice, Human Rights, African Human Rights, Legal Problems of HIV & AIDS, and Law and Transformation. His research focuses on Critical Race Theory, African Jurisprudence, Law and Identity, Feminist Political Philosophy, Black Political Thought, Legal Education, and Critical Theories of Human Rights and Constitutionalism, with a central emphasis on developing a critical anti-racist post-conquest jurisprudence to explore possibilities for liberation, decolonisation, and historical justice in South Africa and beyond.

Professor Cathi Albertyn is a Professor of Law and South African Research Chair in Equality, Law and Social Justice at the University of the Witwatersrand. She was previously Director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (2001–2007) and headed its Gender Research Programme (1992–2001), working closely with the women’s movement during the constitutional negotiations and post-1994 law reform processes. She teaches constitutional and human rights law and researches equality, gender, human rights, and constitutional law. She is a B1-rated researcher with international recognition, editor of the South African Journal on Human Rights, and serves on multiple editorial boards. She has held roles including Commissioner on the first Commission on Gender Equality (1997), shortlisted for the Constitutional Court (2005), and Commissioner at the South African Law Reform Commission (2007–2011), and has served on the executive of various NGOs including the Reproductive Rights Alliance and CASAC.

Prelisha Singh, currently in private practice, specialises in all aspects of constitutional and administrative law. She has a particular interest, and expertise, in public procurement, public finance, health, and education law and advises clients both in the public and the private sector on complex issues arising in these areas. Prelisha has extensive expertise in judicial reviews arising from procurement processes and administrative decisions, drafting complex opinions and advisory memoranda on constitutional and administrative law issues as well as drafting legislation, regulations, submissions, public procurement documents and pleadings for either court proceedings or internal dispute resolution mechanisms. She regularly undertakes large scale compliance reviews for clients in various regulated industries, conducts investigations and advises on the issues arising therefrom, and engages with a number of regulators.

Professor Charles Manga Fombad is Professor of Law and the Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa, (ICLA), Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. He holds a Licence en Droit (University of Yaoundé), LLM and Ph D (University of London), and a Diploma in Conflict Resolution (University of Uppsala). Professor Fombad is a member of the editorial board of several distinguished national and international journals. He is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, an Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law and a Vice President of the International Association of Constitutional Law. He has published more than 90 articles in peer-reviewed journals and more than 60 book chapters and is the author/editor of 16 books and monographs. He is the Series Editor of the Stellenbosch Handbooks in African Constitutional Law published by Oxford University Press. Professor Fombad is also co-editor (with Professor Rainer Grote of the Max Planck Institute) of the introductory reports to African constitutions published as part of OUP’s Constitutions of the Countries of the World Online. Professor Fombad has won several awards for his research, the most recent being the prestigious 2021 University of Pretoria Chancellor’s Award for Research. His research interests are in comparative African constitutional law, media law, the African Union law, and legal history, especially issues of mixed systems and legal harmonisation.

Sir Rabinder Singh is a Lord Justice of Appeal and President of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in the UK. He was called to the Bar (Lincoln’s Inn) in 1989 and was in practice at the Bar from 1990 to 2011. He was elected a Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn in 2009. Before that, from 1986 to 1988, he was lecturer at the University of Nottingham. He served on the Attorney General’s Panels of Junior Counsel to the Crown from 1992 to 2002 (on the A Panel from 2000). He was also Additional Junior Counsel to Inland Revenue from 1997 to 2002. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel) in 2002. He chaired the Administrative Law Bar Association from 2006 to 2008. From 2003 to 2011 he was a Deputy High Court Judge, and was a Recorder of the Crown Court from 2004 to 2011. He was appointed a High Court Judge (Queen’s Bench Division, now King’s Bench Division) in October 2011. He was a Presiding Judge of the South Eastern Circuit from 2013 to 2016 and the Administrative Court liaison judge for the Midland, Wales and Western circuits during 2017. In September 2018 he was appointed President of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (his tenure ending on 31 October 2025). He was a visiting Professor of Law at the London School of Economics from 2003 to 2009 and a Visiting Fellow, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford from 2016 to 2019; has been an Honorary Professor of Law at Nottingham University since 2007; and has published widely. He was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in October 2017.

Justice Sheilah L. Martin was trained in both civil law and common law before moving to Alberta where her career as an educator, lawyer, and judge has been driven by a commitment to fairness and equal justice for all. Justice Martin earned a Bachelor of Civil Law and a Bachelor of Common Law from McGill University in 1981. She then received a Master of Laws from the University of Alberta in 1983 and a Doctorate of Juridical Science from the University of Toronto in 1991. She was called to the Alberta Bar in 1989. Justice Martin worked as a researcher and law professor at the University of Calgary from 1982 to 1986. In the 1980s, she also taught in the common law and civil law exchange program organised by the federal Department of Justice, and was a visiting professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. From 1991 to 1996, she was Acting Dean and then Dean of the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law. Justice Martin taught courses ranging from commercial transactions and feminist legal theory to advanced constitutional law. From 1996 to 2005, Justice Martin practiced criminal and constitutional litigation in Calgary. Her practice was wide-ranging and addressed issues of deep significance to Canadian society. She acted pro bono for the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund and the Alberta Association of Sexual Assault Centres in cases before the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2000, she drew on her expertise in the area of compensation for the wrongfully convicted as an expert witness in the Thomas Sophonow Inquiry. At the invitation of National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, she joined the team tasked with finding a new approach to redress the harms caused by the forced attendance of Indigenous children at residential schools. Her work alongside many others contributed to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Justice Martin was appointed to the Court of Queen’s Bench for Alberta in 2005. In 2016, she was appointed to the Courts of Appeal of Alberta, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. She has also served as a Deputy Judge for the Supreme Court of Yukon since 2009. Justice Martin’s commitment to teaching and education has carried over into her career on the bench. She serves on the Canadian Judicial Council’s Education Committee and has worked with a variety of organisations on judicial education programming. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada on December 18, 2017.

Justice Dunstan Mlambo is the Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa (appointed effective 1 August 2025) and a former Judge President of the Gauteng High Court, where he led the country’s largest and busiest division. He began his career as a public interest and labour lawyer, worked at the Legal Resources Centre and in private practice, and founded his own firm before joining the bench in 1997 as a Labour Court judge. He later served in the Gauteng High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal, and also headed the Labour Court. Widely recognised for his judicial leadership, Justice Mlambo has driven major reforms to improve efficiency and access to justice, including introducing technological systems such as CaseLines, expanding court infrastructure, and implementing measures like mandatory mediation to address case backlogs. He is known for promoting collegiality and transformation within the judiciary, has delivered significant judgments in high-profile matters, and has contributed to legal aid reform and international judicial initiatives.

Sir Jeffrey Jowell is a leading barrister and academic specialising in constitutional, public, and international law, with extensive experience across multiple jurisdictions. He served as the inaugural Director of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law (2010–2015) and is widely recognised in Chambers UK and Legal 500 for his expertise, particularly in offshore and public international law. Knighted (KCMG) for services to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, he has appeared before courts including the UK Supreme Court, Privy Council, European Court of Human Rights, and courts across the Commonwealth, and has advised on constitutional design and governance. A former member of the Venice Commission, he is Professor Emeritus at University College London, a Bencher of the Middle Temple, co-chair of the World Justice Project Leadership Council, and a published authority on judicial review and constitutional law.

Dan Mafora is a Lecturer in the Department of Public Law. He specialises in constitutional law, administrative law and constitutional theory. His research interests include jurisprudence, legal theory, legal history and corporate law. He is a contributing author to South African Constitutional Law (Brickhill et al, eds), the Yearbook of South African Law and Juta’s Quarterly Review. He is also the author of Capture in the Court: In Defence of Judges and the Constitution (Tafelberg, 2023), and he publishes a Substack blog on matters constitutional. He is the former senior researcher at the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) and completed his articles of clerkship at DLA Piper SA with rotations in the commercial, mergers and acquisitions, and banking and finance departments. Mafora was clerk to Justice Mbuyiseli R. Madlanga at the Constitutional Court in 2018. He holds an LLB from the University of Pretoria and an LLM from the University of Cape Town (with distinction). 

Conference Registration

REGISTRATION CLOSES ON 31 MAY 2026.  No late registrations accepted.

Conference Registration Rates

Early Registration (October 2025 – 12 March 2026)

• Participants Resident in Africa | R4,500
• All other Participants | R6,500

Regular Registration (13 March 2026 – 31 May 2026) 

• Participants Resident in Africa | R5,000
• All other Participants | R7,000

Gala Dinner (Evening of 2 July 2026)

•    Attendance fee: R1,250 per ticket.
•    Tickets must be reserved and paid for at the time of registration.
•    Limited to 150 participants.
 

PLEASE COMPLETE THE CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FORM AND MAKE PAYMENT HERE.

Important Notes

•    Registration will be considered final only after proof of payment has been received and verified.
•    Delegates are advised to retain a copy of their proof of payment for their records.
•    All participants are required to arrange their own accommodation. Recommended establishments are listed under Accommodation.

Accommodation options for PLOC 2026

All participants are required to arrange their own accommodation. 

The following establishments are recommended options:

Neighbourgood Hotel, Newlands

Hotel description: A mixed-use property in upmarket Newlands with 122 hotel rooms (Standard, Deluxe, Superior). Ideal for corporate, sport, or leisure groups. Facilities include an on-site restaurant and café, spa, yoga/pilates studio, swimming pool, coworking space, and flexible conference venues for events, workshops, and meetings.

Hotel rate (inclusive of breakfast): 

• Standard Room (single occupancy) | R962.50 per night

BOOK HERE for Neighbourgood

The Vineyard Hotel 

Hotel description: A historic seven-acre riverside estate in Newlands offering elegant rooms and suites with views of Table Mountain and gardens. Guests enjoy multiple restaurants, a spa, indoor and outdoor pools, fitness centre, and extensive conference and event facilities, making it ideal for both leisure and business stays.

Hotel rate:

• Courtyard Rooms (single occupancy) | R2567 per night

• Mountain Rooms (single occupancy) | R3254 per night 

BOOK HERE for Vineyard

Protea Hotel Mowbray

Hotel description: A charming hotel set in a restored Cape Dutch Manor House, offering modern rooms and self-catering apartments. Facilities include a restaurant, outdoor pool, fitness centre, and meeting venues, making it suitable for both business and leisure travellers.

Hotel rate: 

• Guest Room (1 King) | R1760 per night

• Guest Room (2 Twin) | R1760 per night

• 1 Bedroom Executive Suite | R2060 per night

• Loft Room | R2360 per night

• 2 Bedroom Executive Suite | R3260 per night

BOOK HERE for Protea Mowbray 

Carmichael House Boutique Hotel

Hotel description: An elegant Victorian-style guesthouse in Rosebank offering individually decorated rooms with modern comforts. Guests enjoy a tranquil garden, swimming pool, and personalised service, ideal for a more intimate leisure or business stay.

Hotel rate:

Winter Warmer Special with 30% discount + the additional UCT delegate discount of 10%

• 2 Luxury Doubles, respectively Jade & Ruby | R2,060/room/night (single occupancy)

• 2 Family Rooms, respectively Sapphire & Aquamarine | R2,250/room/night (single occupancy)

• 2 Family Suites (Onyx & Quartz) & 1 Loft (Diamond) _ R2,500/room/night (single occupancy)

BOOK HERE for Carmichael House 

Full conference information details will be available here once conference logistics are finalised.

For queries about the conference, please email the organisers at publiclawconference2026@gmail.com