Leonora van den Heever

Leonora van den Heever (9 July 1926 – 20 November 2025) was a judge of the High Court of South Africa. She was South Africa's first female judge and the first woman to be appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa.

Early life and education Van den Heever was born in Windhoek, the daughter of the jurist and poet Toon van den Heever and Margaretha van den Heever (née Rautenbach). She attended the C&N Sekondêre Meisieskool Oranje in Bloemfontein, after which she completed her tertiary studies at the University of Pretoria, where she obtained, cum laude, her BA degree in English and Latin followed by a MA degree, cum laude, in English. She then taught at the Normaalkollege in Bloemfontein but, persuaded by her father, she temporarily started working as a judge's registrar and also began her LLB part-time through the University of the Orange Free State, graduating in 1951.

Career Van den Heever started practising as an advocate at the Bloemfontein Bar in 1952 and in 1968 she became a senior advocate. In 1969, she was appointed a judge in the Northern Cape Division, thus becoming the first female judge in South Africa.

Honours and awards Van den Heever received the Chancellor's Medal from the University of Pretoria in 1996, an honorary LLD from the University of Stellenbosch in 1997 and in 1987 the Women's Bureau Achievement Award.