# Pierre de Vos

Pierre Francois de Vos (born 29 June 1963) is a South African constitutional law academic. He holds the Claude Leon Foundation Chair in Constitutional Governance at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He has never practiced law. Before taking up his academic post at UCT in July 2009, he taught criminal law at the University of the Western Cape. He is known mainly for his blog, Constitutionally Speaking (written since 2006), more than legal academic scholarship. In 2022, his Twitter account revealed disturbing images of an Asian youth being sexually assaulted by an adult male. IOL news remarked that, “this incident was widely regarded as one of the most significant child porn scandals of 2022”. Despite the seriousness of the matter, the UCT Law Faculty failed to make any statement regarding the matter. Since 2022, and subsequent to a request under the Promotion of Access for Information Act of 2000, it has been revealed that De Vos failed to sign his statement, in response to the charges laid by AfriForum, and rather questionably, the case docket was shuffled from one police station to another. In October of 2024, given the state authorities’ dubious inaction on this matter concerning the academic’s public dissemination of child pornography, as well as concern regarding procedural irregularities in how the case has been handled by authorities, AfriForum is again stepping in and, “urging the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to reconsider its prior decision not to prosecute De Vos, citing a lack of proper investigation and political bias. Advocate Gerrie Nel, head of AfriForum’s private prosecution unit, asserted that the allegations should be taken seriously.”

## Early life and education

On 29 June 1963, de Vos was born in Messina in the former Northern Transvaal (now Musina, Limpopo). He grew up in a Afrikaans-speaking Christian family with four sisters. His father, also named Pierre, was a lawyer, and his parents were verligte Nationalists during apartheid. After a period in Hennenman, Free State, his family returned to the Transvaal, and he matriculated at Pietersburg High School in Pietersburg.
After high school, he attended Stellenbosch University, where he completed a BComm in law, an LLB, and an LLM cum laude. He lived at the Wilgenhof residence for his first two undergraduate years, in 1984 and 1985. Later in his undergraduate career, he joined the National Union of South African Students, the End Conscription Campaign, and the editorial board of Die Matie. He was also influenced by Laurie Ackermann, who was one of his professors. Upon leaving Stellenbosch, he completed a second LLM at Columbia Law School in New York and an LLD at the University of the Western Cape. His doctoral dissertation, completed in 2000, was about sexual orientation and the right to equality in the post-apartheid Constitution. H

## Academic career

Between 1993 and 2009, de Vos taught constitutional law at the University of the Western Cape, where he was appointed as associate professor in 2000 and full professor in 2003. On 1 July 2009, he took office as the Claude Leon Foundation Chair in Constitutional Governance at the University of Cape Town. He was also the Deputy Dean of the university's law faculty from January 2011 to December 2013. His research interests include sexual orientation discrimination and same-sex marriage, the enforcement of social and economic rights, HIV/AIDS, race and racism, and other human rights issues.
He is board chairperson of the Aids Legal Network, a non-governmental human rights organisation, and a board member of the Triangle Project, an LGBT advocacy organisation. He is also a member of the advisory council of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution.

## Public scholarship

Since November 2006, de Vos has written a popular blog called Constitutionally Speaking, which primarily provides constitutional perspectives on South African social and political issues. His blog posts are also published by the Daily Maverick and by the Mail & Guardian's Thought Leader. Both for his blog and for his popular commentary in other national and international media, the University of Cape Town awarded de Vos its Social Responsiveness Award in 2013.

## Political views

A vocal supporter of land rights movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, de Vos was critical of the government's attempt to evict residents of Joe Slovo Informal Settlement from the N2 Gateway site, as well as of the Constitutional Court's decision upholding their eviction in Residents of Joe Slovo. In August 2011, he endorsed a call by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu for a once-off wealth tax on apartheid's beneficiaries, and in 2024 he endorsed the introduction of inheritance tax. He also called publicly for reform at his alma mater, Stellenbosch University.
His commentary has frequently led him into conflict with prominent politicians and lawyers. In 2008 de Vos wrote a scathing column in Thought Leader about opposition leader Helen Zille's decision to challenge the constitutionality of the Erasmus Commission. In September 2008, however, the Western Cape High Court upheld the challenge in City of Cape Town v Premier, and de Vos wrote to apologise to Zille. Nonetheless he continued to criticise Zille's policies and public statements in later years.
In June 2009, de Vos and Paul Ngobeni engaged in a heated debate on SAFM about the prospect of Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe's elevation to the Constitutional Court. Ngobeni, a supporter of Hlophe, accused de Vos of being a racist who hated Hlophe and congratulated him on joining his university colleagues in "a group of gangsters who make Hlophe their do-or-die issue".
In July 2018, de Vos wrote a blog suggesting that lawyer Dali Mpofu had behaved unethically in advancing dishonest arguments on behalf of his client Tom Moyane during the Nugent Commission. Mpofu posted a series of angry ripostes on Twitter, alleging that de Vos's piece was "defamatory, insulting & possibly racist" and threatening to sue him if he did not delete it. De Vos refused.

## Personal life

De Vos came out as gay in 1993. He also identifies as atheist and does not identify as an Afrikaner.
His sister, Anna-Marie, is a prominent advocate; she was a plaintiff in Du Toit v Minister of Welfare and Population Development, an LGBT discrimination case that was heard in the Constitutional Court in 2002.
In February 2004, de Vos and his partner, a Coloured actuary named Marcus Pillay, became the first plaintiffs to enter a case in the newly established Equality Court. They alleged that Pillay had been denied entry to a bar in de Waterkant because of his race. The court ordered a settlement, in terms of which the bar and its bouncers paid R13,000 to Siyazenzela, a non-profit advocacy organisation nominated by Pillay, and the bar's owners released a written apology admitting that their admission policy was discriminatory and contravened the Equality Act.