Skip to main content
Menu
♥ Donate
eventREF E-0013197Revised

Event record

Official inauguration of the Constitutional Court

Official inauguration of the Constitutional Court

Arthur Chaskalson.

Updated
30 Sep 2019
Official inauguration of the Constitutional Court

Arthur Chaskalson.

The Constitutional Court, with Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson as president, was formally opened by President Nelson Mandela on the morning of 14 February 1995. The judges took oaths of office wearing their specially designed green robes in the presence of the president and the minister of justice, Dullah Omar. The next day the eleven judges took their seats to hear the first case, concerning the question of the constitutionality of the death penalty. The court spent its first few years in rented accommodation, but on Human Rights Day, on 21 March 2004, the new complex was opened by President Thabo Mbeki.  

Search events by date

What happened on your birthday?
View more events from this day

How we know this

  1. 01Kalley, J.A.; Schoeman, E. & Andor, L.E. (eds)(1999). Southern African Political History: a chronology of key political events from independence to mid-1997, Westport: Greenwood.

Last updated · 30 Sep 2019

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2011, March 16). Official inauguration of the Constitutional Court. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0013197

South African History Online (2011) 'Official inauguration of the Constitutional Court', South African History Online, 16 March. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0013197 (Accessed: 11 August 2026).

South African History Online, Official inauguration of the Constitutional Court [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0013197, (accessed 11 August 2026).

"Official inauguration of the Constitutional Court." South African History Online, 16 Mar. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0013197. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.

South African History Online. "Official inauguration of the Constitutional Court." South African History Online. March 16, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0013197.

Further reading

Mooivallei, Dairy Farm Place

Mooivallei, Dairy Farm

Mooivallei Suiwel is a cheese and butter producer based at Bonnievale, a town in the Breede River Valley in the Western....
Popular Content

SAHO is free because readers fund it. Donate →

Contribute to this record0 comments

Comments are reader contributions. They are not part of the archival record.