David Bilchitz is a Professor of Law at the University of Reading as well as at the University of Johannesburg and is Director of the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law. He was appointed as an Acting Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February to May 2024, the first full-time academic to have been appointed directly to act as judge on that Court in over 20 years. He is a Vice-President of the International Association of Constitutional Law and a Member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa. He has a BA (Hons) LLB cum laude from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Bilchitz has multiple publications covering a range of areas, including the rights of individuals in deprived socio-economic conditions. In relation to animals, Prof Bilchitz has written several seminal articles that argue for a change in the status and legal entitlements of animals. He has also sought to put his ideas into practice – he is a founding director of Animal Law Reform South Africa and has played a role in the moratorium on elephant culling, law reform initiatives and is currently part of litigation that seeks an injunction to release three elephants from the Johannesburg Zoo into a sanctuary. He has also co-taught the first course on animal law in South Africa.