Justice Theron
Constitutional Court of South Africa
Justice Theron was born in Wentworth, a previously “coloured” township, to a poor working class family. Growing up as a young child in a “coloured area” (so prescribed under apartheid laws) where crime, abuse of alcohol, drugs, and domestic violence was rife, Justice Theron did not know what it was to have running water or a bathroom in the house until she was 13. Although Justice Theron grew up in poverty where life was an everyday struggle to survive, she appears not to be impoverished by her past. The underlying personality created by a stoic upbringing has produced a high achiever.
She attended Natal University from 1984 to 1988, which is now known as the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws degrees. In 1989 she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the US. She obtained a Master of Laws degree from Georgetown University in Washington D.C. in 1990. Whilst she was in the United States, she worked for the International Labour Organisation in Washington D.C. and for a firm of attorneys in Los Angeles.
She practiced for as an advocate for ten years before her elevation to the Bench. Justice Theron has smashed through glass ceilings during her career. When appointed to the KwaZulu-Natal Division of the High Court in 1999, Justice Theron became its first black female judge and, at the age of 32, the youngest judge in the country. A 1995 profile in the General Council of the Bar magazine described her as “remarkable”, recounting how the 12-year-old Theron had started a sweet-making home industry so as to pay for schooling and music lessons. This led to a proficiency in the piano, organ and violin.
Justice Theron was one of the founding members of the SA Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ). Under her leadership, the SA Chapter of the IAWJ, in partnership with NADEL, the Black Lawyers Association and various other NGOs, World Aids Day was celebrated on the steps of the Durban High Court and the Pietermaritzburg High Court. This was a first in the legal fraternity and soon earned Justice Theron the title of ‘activist judge’.
In December 2010, Justice Theron was appointed as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal. At the time, she was the youngest member of that Court. In July 2017, she was appointed as a Justice of the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country. Justice Theron is one of the longest serving women judges in South Africa, having served 26 years on the bench. During this time, she has been actively involved in judicial education and training, sits on a number of boards, and has delivered papers at numerous conferences, both within South Africa and internationally. Justice Theron was the first women President of the Administrative Tribunal of the African Development Bank.
Justice Theron is an independent thinker and her jurisprudence spans a broad range of issues. She has consistently demonstrated a commitment to the advancement of women’s rights. For example, in the case of Gumede, Justice Theron wrote a landmark judgment, ruling that women in customary marriages were, in effect, married in community of property, and so should accrue similar rights and benefits to women married under civil law. This precedent-setting decision in 2008 on the rights of women in customary marriage was upheld by the Constitutional Court and had a great impact on African women in monogamous customary marriages.
Justice Theron is well-known for her leading judgments and, in particular, for her fierce defense of women’s rights. Justice Theron has consistently demonstrated an independent-mindedness and a hard-nosed attitude to rape and gender-based violence in South Africa. Whilst at the Supreme Court of Appeal, she wrote a powerful dissent in State v Nkomo, which emphasized the need for courts to be mindful of their duty to protect the equality, dignity and freedom of women. Her bold decision in refusing to support a ruling that gave a reduced sentence to a rapist was publicly praised by the then Minister of Justice Bridget Mabandla and the Judicial Services Commission. In dissenting, she bravely stood alone and stood up against her peers on the bench who felt otherwise.
In 2012 Justice Theron, writing a unanimous judgment for a full Supreme Court of Appeal Bench, found that the head of the Free State education department could not unilaterally impose policy on school principals and governing bodies. This after two schools had decided to exclude pregnant learners from attending classes for stipulated periods.
She is also known for her remarkable work at the Constitutional Court involving administrative law, children’s rights, including the basic right to education. In AB v Pridwin Preparatory School Justice Theron held that where a learner is at an independent school, that learner’s education at the school cannot be terminated without an appropriate and substantively fair procedure.
Over the years, Justice Theron has received numerous awards for her contribution to the development of justice in South Africa. She is a sought-after speaker, locally and internationally. Justice Theron is an avid hiker and she has summited Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain on the African continent.
Further information about Justice Theron can be found on the website of the Constitutional Court:
www.concourt.org.za/index.php/judges/current-judges/222-justice-theron-leona-valerie-2
Below is a link to an article written about Justice Theron on her appointment to the Constitutional Court of South Africa:
Talk Information:
Justice Theron on 30 years of Democracy and Constitutionalism in South Africa
August 30, 2025 | 9:00 AM