Prof Shaun de Freitas obtained the degrees BProc, LLB, the LLM by dissertation and the LLD at the Faculty of Law, University of the Free State (UFS).

He served as editor-in-chief of the Journal for Juridical Science from 2013 to 2018. Prof De Freitas acted as Head of the Department of Constitutional Law & Philosophy of Law at the UFS from 2008–2011 and is currently the Academic Head of the Department of Public Law at the UFS (since 2019).

He has authored/co-authored over sixty scholarly articles, including publications in the Journal of Law and Religion, Journal of Church and State, Australian Journal of Law and Religion, The Historical Journal, Brigham Young University Law Review, Scottish Journal of Theology, Westminster Theological Journal and the International Journal for Religious Freedom.

He also presented several scholarly papers and has been rated as an established researcher by the National Research Foundation (South Africa) since 2016.

Prof De Freitas lectures on Human Rights Law and currently specialises in the intersection between law, belief and the civil authorities.

Khanya B Motshabi is a senior lecturer in Public Law at the University of the Free State. Motshabi previously taught at the Universities of North-West, the Witwatersrand and Cape Town. He currently teaches Advanced Human Rights Law and Advanced Constitutional Law and received a 2023 and 2024 Khothatsa Award for Teaching Excellence of the University.

He is Faculty Student Mentor and Head of Student Engagement in the Faculty of Law. He is Strategy Lead of the UFS Africa Reparations Hub.

He has been Scholar in Residence at the Centre for Human Rights of Columbia University in New York and Visitor at University College, London. He is a Fellow of the Fulbright Programme and the 21st Century Trust. He was a 2002 UCT Graduate School of Business/Financial Mail Distinguished Speaker.

He has twenty-four years’ experience as a legal advisor, senior executive, chief executive and board director in life assurance, funds management, strategy consulting and alternative dispute resolution. He was the founder chief executive of the National Empowerment Fund.

He contributed to the books Sanctions Against Apartheid and Educating and Developing Managers for a Changing South Africa and to the Annual Survey of South African Law.

He co-edited Cultural Synergy in South Africa: Weaving Strands of Africa and Europe and The Dispute Resolution Digest 2014.

His LLD thesis addresses Intertemporal Law, Mandatory Economic Reparations for Colonialism and Continuous Violation of Human Rights in the 21st Century.

Forthcoming journal publications include Self-Determination without Self-Determination in the African Court: The Strange Case of Mornah v Benin and Seven Others and Neo-Colonialism, Coloniality and Continuous Human Rights Violation in International Law.

He is a contributor and consultant to Culver and Razzante’s casebook on Identity, Power and Professional Responsibility.

Advocate Inez Bezuidenhout is a lecturer in the Department of Public Law at the University of the Free State (UFS), where she teaches Criminal Procedure (LCPR3705) and Capita Selecta from the Law of Evidence (LPES7920).

She holds the degrees Baccalaureus Iuris (1998), Baccalaureus Legum (2000) and Magister Legum (Research) (2009), and is currently pursuing a PhD in Law at Rhodes University.

Admitted as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa in 2001, she has extensive experience spanning legal practice, legal aid, judicial service, academic leadership and higher education.

Her professional career includes serving as a practising advocate, supervisory advocate and junior lecturer at the UFS Law Clinic, Director of the UFS Law Clinic, acting magistrate in both the District and Regional Courts, and Head of the UFS Student Discipline and Mediation Unit.

Adv Bezuidenhout also holds qualifications in Commercial Mediation and Labour Law.

In addition to her academic responsibilities, she serves as the UFS Project Coordinator for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA)/UFS In the Shadow of a Prosecutor Programme, which provides students with valuable exposure to prosecutorial practice and the criminal justice system.

Her research and scholarly contributions may be viewed on her ORCiD and Google Scholar profiles.

Sakkie holds the BIur, LLB, LLM and PhD degrees from the University of the Free State. He is also a qualified debt counsellor and mediator. He was admitted as an attorney of the High Court of South Africa in 2002.

He was in private practice until 2007. In 2008 he joined the UFS Law Clinic as the principal attorney. There he supervised student training and mentoring of candidate attorneys. He further provided legal services for indigent members of the community in a variety of fields.

In 2016 he was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Public Law. He teaches the Law of Civil Procedure and ADR modules at undergraduate level.

His main research focus area is mediation in medico-legal disputes, which was also the topic of his PhD thesis. He supervises postgraduate students on mediation-related topics and has also published on the topic.

Adri du Plessis is a senior lecturer in the Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, at the University of the Free State. She holds a doctoral degree in Constitutional Law. Her thesis was titled “The constitutional framework of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment”.

She has published in accredited journals and presented papers at national and international conferences. She is the secretary of the Administrative Justice Association of South Africa, Teaching Administrative Law subcommittee.

She is the principal investigator on a research project on auditor liability in South Africa, commissioned by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA).

Her research interests are Administrative Law, research ethics, auditor liability, Black Economic Empowerment, Public Procurement and human rights.

Dr Jo-Marí Visser is a senior lecturer in the Department of Public Law at the University of the Free State. She obtained the degrees BSc, BMedSc Honours in Medical Physiology, LLB, and LLD from the University of the Free State, and an MSc in Medical Criminalistics from the University of Pretoria. She was admitted as an advocate of the High Court of South Africa in 2011.

Before joining the UFS, she worked as a public prosecutor in the National Prosecuting Authority and briefly as an assistant forensic analyst in the Biology Unit of the South African Police Service Forensic Science Laboratory.

Dr Visser lectures Law of Evidence, Forensic Evidence, and Postgraduate Research Methodology. Her research focuses on the law of evidence, forensic scientific evidence, expert evidence, and wrongful convictions, and the interaction between law, science, and fair trial rights.

Her current scholarly work examines the reliability and admissibility of forensic evidence in South African criminal trials, the role of cross-examination in testing expert evidence, forensic DNA governance, and the contribution of flawed forensic evidence to wrongful convictions.

She supervises postgraduate research in law of evidence, forensic evidence, criminal procedure, inquests, cybercrime, DNA evidence, and corporate criminal liability.

Dr Visser has served on several UFS research ethics committees, acted as external examiner and moderator for various South African universities, and received the UFS Khothatsa Award for teaching and creating positive relationships with students.

Albert Nell completed his LLB (summa cum laude) in 2008 and Latin Hons (summa cum laude) in 2009, both at the University of the Free State (UFS). He completed his LLM degree by dissertation (cum laude) on International Humanitarian Law at the UFS in 2010. He was awarded the Dean’s medal for each of the three degrees as well as a Senate’s medal for the Hons degree.

Under the supervision of Prof Robert Cryer and Dr Bosko Tripković, he obtained his PhD on Philosophy in International Criminal Law (no corrections) from the University of Birmingham in 2019.

Albert lectured in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies (Latin) at the UFS from 2010–2012 and the Department of Public Law (philosophy of law, international criminal law, public international law, statutory interpretation, international humanitarian law and international theory and sources) since 2009.

Albert has published both domestically and internationally. He has reviewed for several journals, including the South African Yearbook for International Law, Journal for Juridical Science, African Yearbook on International Humanitarian Law, Criminal Law and Philosophy and the Journal of International Criminal Justice.

His current research is in international criminal law theory.

Believing that current global questions ask for broad structural responses, Dr Nico Buitendag conducts transdisciplinary theoretical research that bridges law, politics, sociology, and philosophy. He holds the degrees LLB, LLM (Pretoria), LLM (Leiden) and LLD (Kyoto).

Deeply influenced by autopoietic systems theory, his work attempts to project the theory further along its radical and anti-hierarchical horizon.

This has led to publications connecting theory to practical cases such as political hate-speech trials, sanctioned police violence at Marikana, the death of Steve Biko at the hands of the state, and border conflicts between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

It has also resulted in the translation of several works by Niklas Luhmann, a late pioneer of autopoietic systems theory, from German into English.

Professor Rinda Botha is an associate professor in the Department of Public Law at the University of the Free State. She obtained the degrees Buris, LLB, LLM by dissertation and LLD (Criminal Law) at the Faculty of Law, University of the Free State (UFS).

She has more than 25 years of experience in legal education, research and postgraduate supervision. Her teaching and research focus primarily on Criminal Law, with particular interests in criminal liability, sexual offences, domestic violence, alternative dispute resolution in criminal matters, and comparative criminal justice.

She has published extensively in accredited South African legal journals and regularly presents her research at national academic conferences.

In addition to coordinating undergraduate Criminal Law modules, she supervises LLB, LLM and LLD research and serves as an external examiner and moderator for several South African universities.

Her research seeks to contribute to the development of a fair, effective and accessible criminal justice system through doctrinal and comparative legal scholarship.

Prof Namakula is a trial and reparatory justice scholar. She is a member and former Chairperson of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, anchored at the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva. She is also serving on the African Union Committee of Experts on Reparations (AUCER).

As founding convenor of the Africa Reparation Hub, her most recent edited book, Untold Reflections from the World Conference against Racism: from Durban to Humanity, unveils the details of the processes and deliberations that culminated in the consensual global commitment to decisively confront racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance.

Among other significant undertakings, she authored Resolution 543 on Africa’s Reparations Agenda and the Human Rights of Africans in the Diaspora and People of African Descent Worldwide, which was adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in 2022, contributing significantly to the current global momentum for Africa's reparation.

Prof Mariëtte Reyneke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Law at the University of the Free State (UFS). She holds a PhD from Tilburg University (Netherlands) and is a C2-rated NRF researcher whose work focuses on education law, children’s rights, school discipline, and the application of restorative practices to foster and restore relationships within educational settings.

She is deeply committed to engaged scholarship, frequently presenting courses on restorative school discipline to teachers. Her professional leadership includes serving as the President of the South African Education Law Association (SAELA) (2023–2028) and as a member of the Board of the South African Council for Educators (SACE).

In 2026, Prof Reyneke was appointed as a member of the South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) Section 11 Committee on the Right to Education. Additionally, she was included as an expert in the drafting committee for the International and Transversal Guiding Principles on Educational Pluralism (OIDEL project).

Prof Reyneke is the editor of the Journal for Juridical Science and has authored numerous academic publications, including chapters in the book Restorative Discipline: The Law and Practice (Juta), which she co-edited.