Simon Delaney, BA LLB LLM (with distinction) is a practising attorney with 20 years’ experience in the commercial and non-profit sectors. He has litigated media freedom cases in the Constitutional Court as head of the Freedom of Expression Institute Law Clinic. He opened pro bono departments at law firms Norton Rose and Eversheds before being appointed National Director at ProBono.Org.
Simon is a litigator, social activist, researcher, trainer and strategic planner.
He has been involved in many high profile, cutting-edge human rights law cases in South Africa. Highlights include:
- Co-wrote the ‘State of Capture’ Report with ex-Public Protector Thuli Madonsela |(2016).
- Argued before the African Court on Human & People’s Rights in Arusha, Tanzania in Konaté v Burkina Faso which ruled that the Burkinabe defamation laws were in violation of the African Charter on Human & Peoples Rights (2014).
- Represented Mxolisi Nxasana (ex-National Director of Public Prosecutions) in the Constitutional Court case which ordered the removal of the incumbent (2018).
- Won case in Supreme Court of Appeal representing indigent occupiers in Occupiers of Shulana Court v Mark Lewis Steele (2010).
- Represented Freedom of Expression Institute as amicus curiae in Constitutional Court cases of Laugh-It-Off v South African Breweries (the t-shirt case); NM v Smith (the HIV/privacy case); KZN MEC of Education v Pillay (the nose-stud case).