Dhaya Pillay

Pillay was born in Durban in 1958 and completed her B.Proc at UNISA in 1982.[1] Early in her career as an attorney, she joined the firm of noted activist lawyer Yunus Mohamed, a founding member of the UDF and the instructing attorney in the Delmas Treason Trial.[2] Pillay became heavily involved in important political cases and effectively led the firm when Mohamed was in detention.[2][3]

In the late 1980s, Pillay's practice moved towards labour law, in which she later became an expert, acquiring an LLM in the subject from the University of Natal in 1993.[2] Pillay was a drafter of the Labour Relations Act and later became a senior CCMA commissioner. She also served as an advisor to the drafters of the South African Constitution.[1]

Pillay was made a judge of the Labour Court in 2000 and of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in 2010.[1] She supported Judge President Chiman Patel – now ousted amid suspicions that he fell out with the KwaZulu-Natal political establishment[4] – in the racial spat over his appointment.[2][5]

In July 2015 she was interviewed and shortlisted by the Judicial Service Commission for appointment to the Constitutional Court of South Africa.[1] She was nominated by rights groups and former Constitutional Court judge Zak Yacoob[1] and was praised by commentators.[2]

Pillay is an extraordinary professor at the University of Pretoria and has been a visiting academic at the University of Seattle, New York University, the University of Oxford and the Open University.[1] She was recognised as a human rights defender by the Durban branch of Amnesty International in 2005.[2]