Our Supervisory Board – Foundation for Human Rights

Our Supervisory Board

Dr Pali Lehohla has over thirty-five years’ experience in statistics and is the former Statistician-General in South Africa and Head of Statistics South Africa (2000-2017). Dr Lehohla currently sits on the UN Secretary General’s Independent Advisory Panel for the health of mothers, children and adolescents. He also served as the Chair of PARIS 21 which advanced advocacy for use of statistics, and as Chair of the United Nations Statistics Commission. He was the founding chair of the Statistics Commission of Africa (StatCom Africa) and chaired the African Symposium for Statistical Development (ASSD) up until his retirement in 2017. Dr Lehohla was one of a 25 person team of an Independent Expert Advisory Group advising United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on the Data Revolution.

Lydia Cairncross is an A/Professor of Surgery at the University of Cape Town and Head of the Endocrine and Breast Surgical Unit. She is a recognised national leader in her subspecialist field of surgery, playing a key role in developing context appropriate national policy guidelines for breast cancer and endocrine surgical conditions and spearheading innovative systems-based research into promoting earlier diagnosis of cancer. She is also Director for EquiHealth, a project within the Division of Global Surgery which focusses on campaigning for equitable access to quality health care through education and community leadership training. In parallel to her professional work as a surgeon, Professor Cairncross has been involved in campaigning for the right to health and specifically improvements in the quality and accessibility of health care, throughout her medical career

Lesala Mofokeng is a Senior Lecturer who joined the UKZN, School of Law, Howard College Campus, Durban in 1999. He holds qualifications in Bachelors in Arts (BA), Bachelors of Law (LLB) obtained at the University of Natal as well as a Masters in Law (LLM) which he obtained from Georgetown University. Lesala is an Advocate of the High Court, South Africa and has lectured at the South African Law Society’s School for Legal Practice since 2004. He has presented lectures at the University of Pretoria’s Good Governance Academy (co-hosted by the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria [winner of the 2006 UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education] & the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo) in 2008 and facilitated numerous Succession Planning workshops. His main research areas are African customary law, religious law, legal pluralism, international law and international humanitarian law. He has authored and co-authored books in legal pluralism.

Proven talent for aligning business strategy and objectives with established business development paradigms to achieve maximum operational impacts with minimum resource expenditures. Growth-focused, tactical leader with expertise spanning sales, lead generation, market dynamics, regulatory frameworks, requirements assessment, data analysis, marketing, consulting, strategic planning, problem solving, process improvement, stakeholder engagement, end-to-end client relationship management, operations management, team leadership, training, performance assessment, and project management. Exceptionally dedicated professional with keen interpersonal, communication, and organizational skills, as well as negotiation, budget management, policy management, and resource allocation expertise.

Jonathan Klaaren is Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, serving in the Law School and in the Faculty of Humanities with the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER). He teaches, researches, and writes in the areas of human rights, law, and economic and legal sociology, having published widely and supervised numerous dissertations. His current research interests are in the legal profession, competition law & economic regulation, the future of legal identity, and sociolegal studies in Africa. He has served on a number of editorial committees and boards including those of the South African Journal on Human Rights, Law & Society Review, and Law & Policy. He holds a Phd in sociology from Yale University and law degrees from Columbia (JD) and Wits (LLB). He served as Head of the Wits Law School from 2010 to 2013 and as Director of the Mandela Institute at Wits from 2005 to 2007. He has served as an Acting Judge on the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng). His most recent book publication is From Prohibited Immigrants to Citizens: The Origins of Citizenship and Nationality in South Africa (UCT, 2017).

Yasmin Sooka is an international expert working in the field of transitional justice and international criminal law. Ms Sooka currently chairs the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan for the Human Rights Council in Geneva, since June 2016. In 2015, Ms Sooka served as a Member of the Independent Review Panel for Central African Republic (CAR) appointed by the UN Secretary General in June 2015, which investigated Allegations of Sexual Abuse by Foreign Military Forces in the Central African Republic as well as the UN Response to the Allegations. In July 2010, Ms Sooka was appointed by the Secretary-General to serve as a member of the Panel of Experts advising the Secretary-General on Accountability for War Crimes in Sri Lanka. In the years 2000-2019, Yasmin Sooka was the Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa, an independent non-profit Foundation established in 1996 by President Mandela’s government and the European Union, to address the legacy of apartheid and to support the building of a human rights culture in South Africa. She also served as a Commissioner on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1996 to March 2003. She was also appointed by Mary Robinson as one if three independent UN Commissioners on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone between 2002 and 2004. She also held the post of the Inaugural Soros Chair at School of Public Policy-Budapest in the fall of 2015 where she lectured on transitional justice. Ms Sooka also served as an advisory member of the UN Global Study on Resolution 1325 in 2015. She is a Board member of Justice Rapid Response (JRR) and is currently a member of the Independent Advisory Review Panel for UNICEF on its review of the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) polices.

Judge Chetty grew up and attended school in Durban, thereafter attending the University of Durban- Westville, where he completed my LLB in 1985. During that time he was actively involved in student politics, and served as the President of the Law Students Council. He completed his articles in the Western Cape, and was admitted as an attorney in March 1988. He took up a Fulbright scholarship at New York University where he did an LLM focusing on International Human Rights law. During this time he interned at various law firms. He returned to South Africa and took up employment with the Legal Resources Centre in Johannesburg in March 1990 where he has worked for 4 years before transferring to the Durban office, where he remained until his appointment to the High Court bench in June 2014. As the Director of the Durban office for more than 12 years, he has served on the Executive Committee of the LRC. Since his appointment to the bench, he has been invited to serve on the Board of the Legal Resources Trust, which oversees the work of the LRC. He is a dedicated activist who still retains contact with the various community organizations with whom he has worked with over the years

Mr Vally is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights. He is also an acting Judge of the High Court of South Africa. Prior to joining FHR in 2008, he worked as Head of the Human Rights Unit at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. He previously served as the National Legal Officer at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. He served as the Pretoria regional director of the Legal Resources Centre and acted as defense attorney in several high profile human rights cases during the apartheid era. Mr Vally is a former student activist who spent nine months in detention for his political activism.