OLBA Organising Committee

Sfiso Benard Nxumalo (President)

DPhil Candidate at the Faculty of Law (Linacre College)

Sfiso is a DPhil Candidate at the University of Oxford, and his research concerns the development of an African jurisprudence towards human rights and establishing a bill of duties. He holds an LLB degree from the University of the Witwatersrand and a BCL degree from the University of Oxford. He worked at Bowmans Inc as a candidate attorney and as a law clerk at the South African Constitutional Court, working under Justice Khampepe and Justice Majiedt. He is also a Constitutional Court Ismail Mohamed fellow and a Chevening scholar.  He is broadly interested in private law, property law, constitutional law and administrative law.

Mandisa Shandu (Deputy President)

DPhil Candidate at the Faculty of Law (New College)

Mandisa is a second year DPhil Candidate at the University of Oxford, and an Editor at the Oxford Human Rights Hub. Her research focuses on inequality and urban land rights in South Africa. She completed a B.Soc.Sci degree in political science, an LLB, and an LLM in Constitutional and Administrative Law (with distinction) from the University of Cape Town. Mandisa is an admitted attorney and has experience litigating in strategic impact cases involving constitutional-, property-, spatial planning- and housing law, administrative justice, access to basic services and movement lawyering. Prior to commencing her DPhil, Mandisa was the Executive Director and a practicing attorney at Ndifuna Ukwazi – an activist organisation and pro bono law centre that focuses on access to land and affordable, dignified housing in Cape Town, South Africa. Mandisa founded Ndifuna Ukwazi’s law centre in 2015 and was the first Black woman to establish a public interest litigation unit in South Africa. She is passionate about leveraging the law as a tool to improve the quality of life of people living in marginalised communities, and has been recognised on a number of platforms for her work to advance social justice – including the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans.

Kelvin Vries (Director of Development)

DPhil in Law (St Peter's College)

Kelvin is DPhil Candidate at the University of Oxford. He holds an LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa from the University of Pretoria, and a LLM from the University of Namibia. His research interests are broadly in constitutional law, judicial review and human rights. Kelvin has recently interned at the International Bar Association in London, and previously at the Supreme Court of Namibia. His most recent publications focus on transformative constitutionalism and the potential role of ubuntu in constitutional adjudication in Namibia.