Shehnaz Meer

Yasmin Shehnaz Meer (born 28 June 1955) is a South African judge who has been acting Judge President of the Land Claims Court since 2012. She was appointed as a puisne judge in that court in 1996, and she has additionally been a judge of the Western Cape High Court since 2003. Before she joined the bench, she was an attorney at the Legal Resources Centre.

Meer was born on 28 June 1955.^[1] Her mother was political activist Fatima Meer.^[2][3] After matriculating at the Durban Indian Girls' High School in 1972,^[4] she attended the University of Durban-Westville, where she completed a BA in 1975. Thereafter she completed an LLB at the University of Cape Town in 1979 and an LLM at the University of Warwick in 1982.^[5]

After serving her articles of clerkship at Dullah Omar's law firm,^[2] Meer was admitted as an attorney in 1983.^[4] She entered legal practice at the Legal Resources Centre in Cape Town, where she worked as an attorney on public interest litigation matters for the next 13 years.^[4] She was the centre's deputy national director from 1994 to 1996 and then its acting national director in 1996.^[1]

Later in 1996, Meer was appointed as a judge in the newly established Land Claims Court,^[1][5] and she was among the five judges who sat in the first session of the court when it opened in June 1997.^[6]

In November 2002, President Thabo Mbeki announced that he would additionally appoint Meer as a judge of the Western Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa. She joined the High Court on 27 January 2003,^[7] and thereafter she divided her time between the High Court in Cape Town and the Land Claims Court in Johannesburg.^[4] One of her judgments in the High Court, on transparency in political party funding, was upheld by the Constitutional Court of South Africa in My Vote Counts v Minister of Justice and Correctional Services.^[5]

In 2012, after Land Claims Court Judge President Fikile Bam died, Meer was installed as the court's acting Judge President.^[5] She continued to hold that position in an acting capacity as of the end of 2023.^[8]

Meer was an acting judge in the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2011,^[5] and she has been nominated for elevation to the Constitutional Court on several occasions. She was shortlisted for elevation in 2003,^[2] and interviewed again in 2008.^[9] On two later occasions, in 2009 and 2021, she was nominated but withdrew from contention before the Judicial Service Commission held its hearings.^[10][11][12]

Meer is divorced and has three children.^[2]

• Y. S. Meer at Judges Matter
• Review by the Bar Council