2017 bentham association presidential address & dinner

The
2017 Bentham Association Presidential Address
was delivered by:

Kate O’Regan
former Judge, Constitutional Court of South Africa
on
A Constitutional Journey:
Judicial review of administrative action in post-apartheid South Africa

About the presidential address

Until 1994, judicial review of administrative action in South Africa would have seemed very familiar to British administrative lawyers, but the transition from apartheid to constitutional democracy changed the constitutional foundation of judicial review. The court’s authority to subject administrative action to review was previously rooted in the common law as in Britain, but it is now founded on a constitutional provision that entrenches the right to administrative justice. This shift initially unsettled administrative lawyers and led to some sharp jurisprudential disagreement between the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court. In her address, Justice O’Regan will describe the key aspects of the journey that judicial review has embarked upon under the South African Constitution, provide her assessment of the developments of the last 20 years and consider whether the South African experience suggests that modern Bills of Rights should entrench the right to administrative justice.

About Kate O’Regan

Kate O’Regan served as one of the first judges of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from 1994 – 2009 and as an ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court of Namibia from 2010 – 2016.  She has recently been appointed as the inaugural Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights in the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford. From 2008 – 2012, Kate served as the inaugural chairperson of the United Nations Internal Justice Council, a body established to ensure independence, professionalism and accountability in the internal system of justice in the UN. She is also President of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal (since 2011), a member of the World Bank Sanctions Board (since 2012) and a member of the IAAF Ethics Board (since 2016).  She is an honorary bencher of Lincoln’s Inn, an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy and the recipient of six  honorary degrees. She has also served on the boards of many NGOs working in the fields of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and equality.

About the evening

UCL Laws alumni and UCL alumni now working in the legal profession have been meeting annually for the Bentham Association [formerly the Bentham Club] Presidential Address and Dinner since 1949.

The evening included a cocktail reception, the Presidential Address, and dinner. It is a great opportunity each year in March to catch up with your friends from UCL and have some fun.

Read the 2017 Presidential Address

2017 Bentham Association Attendee List