Nonkosi Mhlantla

Nonkosi Zoliswa Mhlantla (born 2 May 1964) is a South African judge of the Constitutional Court. Elevated to that court in December 2015, she was formerly a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal between December 2008 and November 2015. She entered legal practice as an attorney in her hometown, Port Elizabeth, and joined the bench in June 2002, becoming the first woman ever to be appointed to the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa.

Early life and career Mhlantla was born on 2 May 1964 in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. She grew up in the Port Elizabeth townships of KwaZakhele and New Brighton. In 1982, During this period, she served briefly as an acting judge in the High Court of South Africa, filling a vacancy in the Eastern Cape Division between April and September 2000; She was appointed by President Kgalema Motlanthe later that year. Throughout 2013, she served as an acting judge in the Constitutional Court of South Africa, during absences by Justice Edwin Cameron, Justice Johann van der Westhuizen, and Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng. During that period, she wrote several majority judgements for the Constitutional Court.

Constitutional Court: 2015–present In June 2015, the Judicial Service Commission announced that Mhlantla was one of four candidates who had been shortlisted for possible appointment to fill a permanent vacancy on the Constitutional Court. The seat had formerly belonged to retired Justice Thembile Skweyiya, and commentators had criticised the delay in appointing Skweyiya's replacement. The other candidates were also women – Dhaya Pillay, Leona Theron, and Zukisa Tshiqi – but Mhantla was the most experienced among them.

On 9 November 2015, President Jacob Zuma announced that he would appoint Mhlantla to the Constitutional Court bench, with effect from 1 December. When Justice Sisi Khampepe retired in 2021, she became the longest-serving woman in the Constitutional Court.

Personal life Mhlantla is a single mother to an adult daughter.