Catherine "Kate" O'Regan was born on 17 September 1957 and is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
25 Facts About Kate O'Regan
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Kate O'Regan moved to Cape Town when she was seven.
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Kate O'Regan's mother was a dentist from a "very political household"; her father was a doctor who became active in poor Catholic communities and those subjected to forced removals.
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Kate O'Regan studied at the University of Cape Town from 1975 to 1980, earning a BA and LLB.
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Kate O'Regan was taught briefly by Arthur Chask n, who had recently founded the Legal Resources Centre, and ran UCT's legal aid project, working with Mahomed Navsa of the University of the Western Cape.
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Kate O'Regan stayed on at Bowman for two years under John Brand, specialising in labour law and land rights and representing COSATU, NUM, NUMSA and the Black Sash.
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In 1985, Kate O'Regan went to London to do a PhD at the London School of Economics on interdicts restraining strikes.
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Kate O'Regan was a founder member of the Law, Race and Gender Research project and the Institute for Development Law at UCT; advised the African National Congress on land claims legislation, working with Geoff Budlender, Aninka Claassens and Derek Hanekom; and served as a trustee of the Legal Resources Centre Trust.
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Kate O'Regan co-edited No Place to Rest: Forced Removals and the Law in South Africa and contributed to A Charter for Social Justice: A Contribution to the South African Bill of Rights Debate.
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In 1994, Kate O'Regan was appointed to the newly formed Constitutional Court of South Africa by Nelson Mandela.
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Aged only 37, Kate O'Regan's appointment was surprising even to her.
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Kate O'Regan wrote several judgments on labour law, in which she had specialised as an attorney and academic.
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In Sidumo v Rustenburg Platinum Mines Ltd, Kate O'Regan wrote separately to emphasise, in agreement with the majority judgment of Navsa AJ, her law-clinic colleague of thirty years earlier, that administrative law applies to labour law disputes.
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Finally, in Steenkamp NO v Provincial Tender Board, another case on the delictual liability of public authorities, Kate O'Regan co-wrote a dissent that would have held the state liable for pure economic loss caused to the winner of an unlawfully awarded tender.
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In discrimination law, Kate O'Regan co-authored Prinsloo v Van der Linde, which established the connection between the right to equality and dignity, and penned a unanimous judgment in the 2003 follow-up to Satchwell v President of the Republic of South Africa.
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Nevertheless, Kate O'Regan was hailed on her retirement as a "stalwart" of the Court, "among its most industrious, as well as progressive, members".
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From February to May 2008, Kate O'Regan acted as Deputy Chief Justice in the absence of Dikgang Moseneke.
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Kate O'Regan was heavily criticised by the government and the Black Lawyers Association, which threatened to lay a misconduct complaint against her for "concern[ing] herself with politics".
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Kate O'Regan is an honorary professor at the University of Cape Town and a visiting professor at the University of Oxford, and was a Hauser Global Visiting Professor at New York University.
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Kate O'Regan has four honorary doctorates, is an honorary bencher of Lincoln's Inn and was elected an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Kate O'Regan is an ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court of Namibia.
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Kate O'Regan was the inaugural chairperson, from 2008 to 2012, of the United Nations Internal Justice Council.
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Kate O'Regan is on the board of several human rights NGOs, including Corruption Watch, the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, the Equal Rights Trust and the Southern African branch of the Open Society Foundations.
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In 2013, Kate O'Regan was appointed by Premier Helen Zille as a commissioner, with Vusi Pikoli, of the Khayelitsha Commission, tasked with investigating the alleged breakdown of policing in Khayelitsha township.
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Kate O'Regan has consistently criticised the slow pace of gender transformation in the South African judiciary.