Deputy Minister Andries Nel: Wits Law Students’ Final Year Gala Dinner

Programme director and future Speaker of the National Assembly Charmaine Mgiba,
President Mihle Kunju, and members of your Cabinet – the 2025 Law Students Council and most importantly you, tonight’s guests of honour – the final year students,
Prof Tracy Gutuza - Academic Director: Wits, Dr Shadi Maganoe – Chair: Transformation Committee, Mr Anda Makrwede, Head: Legal at National Credit Regulator,
Representatives of Bowmans, ENS, Webber Wentzel, and Werksmans – Also known as the Big Five.
Good evening. I request that we all rise – whether in body or in spirit – to recite the Preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.

We, the people of South Africa,
Recognise the injustices of our past;
Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;
Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and
Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to ­
Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.
May God protect our people.
Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika. Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso.
God seën Suid-Afrika. God bless South Africa.
Mudzimu fhatutshedza Afurika. Hosi katekisa Afrika.

When we recite the Preamble to the Constitution, we are not merely honouring words cast in history; we are reaffirming a living covenant — a moral and legal compass that still points the way forward.

The Preamble speaks of healing the divisions of the past, improving the quality of life of all citizens, and freeing the potential of each person.

These are not abstract ideals.

They are daily tasks — urgent, unfinished, and deeply intertwined with the work you are about to undertake as the next generation of lawyers.

Each clause of the Preamble calls out to you:

• To heal the divisions of the past is to use the law to close the widening gaps of poverty, unemployment, and inequality — not only between races, but also between rich and poor, urban and rural, men and women, the digitally connected and the digitally excluded.
• To establish a society based on democratic values, social justice, and fundamental human rights is to confront crime and violence, to defend the dignity of women and children against gender-based violence and femicide, and to restore faith in the rule of law where corruption has corroded it.
• To improve the quality of life of all citizens is to ensure that local government works for the people — that water flows, lights stay on, and services reach every home. It is to engage the rising issues of climate change, ensuring that environmental justice becomes part of social justice.
• To free the potential of each person is to embrace the opportunities of a changing world — mastering the use of artificial intelligence and technology not as threats to justice, but as tools to make it faster, fairer, and more accessible.

The Preamble is both a mirror and a map. It reflects how far we have come but also the distance left before we reach our destination.

It is a reminder that the Constitution is not self-executing; it depends on human beings - on you — to give it life through your choices, your courage, and your conscience.

Tonight, as you stand on the threshold of your legal careers, you are not only students of the law—you are stewards of a living tradition that has shaped the destiny of our nation.

You are South Africa’s next generation of legal minds.

The legal profession in this country has never been a neutral space.

It has been a site of struggle—a crucible where questions of justice, freedom, and equality were tested against the harsh realities of oppression and exclusion.

In the darkest days of apartheid, when law was used as an instrument of domination, oppression and exploitation, it was lawyers who dared to reclaim its moral core.

Duma Nokwe, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Joe Slovo, Bram Fischer, Ismail Mahomed, Priscilla Jana, Dullah Omar, Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge, Pius Langa, Godfrey Pitje, Dikgang Moseneke, Albie Sachs, Arthur Chaskalson, Yvonne Mokgoro and Zac Yacoob—these were not only lawyers; they were architects of a different kind of justice – they were revolutionaries.

They understood that their legal work was inseparable from the wider struggle against the intertwined oppressions and exploitations of race, class, and gender.

They saw that the fight for human dignity in the courtroom was bound up with the fight for freedom in the streets, the workplace, and the home.

They used the courtroom as a site of resistance and the law as a weapon of liberation.

Many of them suffered imprisonment, exile, disbarment, and even death. Yet they never betrayed the cause of justice.

Their courage built the foundations upon which our constitutional democracy now stands.

A New Generation and a New Mission

Frantz Fanon once said:
“Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it.”
The generation of Mandela, Tambo, Fischer, and Victoria Mxenge discovered their mission in the struggle for liberation and constitutional democracy.
Your generation must discover your mission in the struggle to give life and meaning to the Constitution they helped bequeath to you.

You are entering the profession at a moment of profound transformation—legal, political, technological, and moral.

You must grapple with a world where the line between justice and power is again being tested; where populism, narrow nationalism, and anti-constitutionalism are on the rise; where the principles of equality, dignity, and freedom are under attack not only here, but across the globe.

To fulfil your mission, you must find ways to make the vision of the Preamble—to “improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person”—real in the lives of the poor, the unemployed, the excluded, and the voiceless.

Look to the examples of your immediate predecessors starting with some of the members of South Africa’s legal team before the International Court of Justice: Adila Hassim, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, Tshidiso Ramogale, Sarah Pudifin-Jones, Lerato Zikalala and others such as Nokukhanya Jele and Buhle Lekokotla.

They remind us that the practice of law is not a retreat into privilege; it is a commitment to public service.

The Challenges of Our Time

You will enter a society that remains marked by poverty, unemployment, and inequality, the triple challenge that continues to undermine our democracy.

You will see how crime and violence, especially gender-based violence and femicide, erode the promise of freedom for many.

You will encounter the corrosive effects of corruption, the despair of communities failed by local government and poor service delivery, and the new global challenges of climate change and environmental justice.
You will also face a rapidly evolving legal profession, where the traditional boundaries of practice are being redrawn by the forces of artificial intelligence, automation, and digital transformation.

The tools of your trade — once the pen, the brief, and the law report — now include algorithms, data analytics, and machine learning systems that can draft contracts, predict judgments, and even analyse witness credibility.

This evolution is already reshaping how justice is delivered and how legal services are rendered.

It challenges each of you to ask: what does it mean to be a lawyer in an age where machines can interpret, but not feel, the human dimensions of justice?

These changes come with both peril and promise.

On the one hand, automation threatens to entrench inequality if access to new technologies is limited to the privileged few.

It can erode privacy, concentrate power, and reduce justice to a mere process of computation.

On the other hand, if guided by ethical lawyers, these same technologies can expand access to justice, make court systems more transparent, and empower citizens who have long been excluded from the legal process.

Artificial intelligence can, for example, assist rural communities to access legal information instantly, or help Legal Aid attorneys manage heavy caseloads more effectively.

The question is not whether AI will change the law — it already has — but whether we will shape that change to serve humanity.
For your generation, the task is to balance innovation with integrity — to harness digital tools without surrendering the moral core of the profession.

The law has always been more than a set of rules; it is a human enterprise built on fairness, empathy, and reason. No algorithm can replace those values.

As future lawyers, judges, and policymakers, you will have to ensure that technology strengthens, rather than supplants, the human conscience at the heart of justice.

The future of law will belong to those who are both technically literate and ethically grounded — who can code in the language of progress while remaining fluent in the language of principle.

These forces will demand that you redefine what it means to be a lawyer in the 21st century—technically skilled, ethically grounded, and socially conscious.

Transformation and Opportunity

Transformation in the legal profession is not just about numbers—it is about the values that animate our justice system.
It is about ensuring that every person who walks into a courtroom feels seen, heard, and respected.

Our progress is tangible. Of the 1,717 permanent magistrates, 54% are women. Among our judges, nearly 70% are Black, and 49% are women.

The attorneys’ profession today is 53% Black and 45% women, with 60% of candidate attorneys being women.

But transformation is also about access, ethics, and equity.

That is why the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development continues to drive change through initiatives such as the Briefing and Outsourcing of State Legal Work Policy, which in 2024/25 directed 88% of state legal briefs to previously disadvantaged practitioners—over R1.1 billion in value.

It is also why we are building pathways for young lawyers to enter the profession:

• The Legal Aid South Africa Future Attorneys Recruitment Programme, one of the largest in the country;
• The Aspirant Prosecutor Programme of the National Prosecuting Authority;
• The Department of Justice Internship Programme; and
• The Office of the State Attorney’s Candidate Attorney Programme.

These are avenues through which you can serve the public while sharpening your craft.

Carrying the Torch Forward

The generation that came before you fought to make the law an instrument of justice.

Your generation must ensure that justice remains the law’s highest purpose.

Be the kind of lawyer who does not confuse wealth with worth or power with principle.

Be courageous in defence of truth, humble in victory, and steadfast in service.

Remember that every brief you hold, every judgment you help shape, every client you represent, contributes to the moral fabric of our nation.

As the Preamble reminds us, we are called to “heal the divisions of the past” and to “free the potential of each person.”

That is your mission. Do not betray it—fulfil it.

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