Melanie J Murcott

Biography

Melanie Murcott is a senior lecturer in the Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria where she teaches administrative and environmental law. She holds an LLB cum laude from the University of Cape Town and an LLM cum laude (masters in Administrative Law and Constitutional Law) from the University of Pretoria.  The title of her LLM dissertation was “The role of environmental justice in socio-economic rights litigation”. She also holds certificates in Advanced Administrative Law and Environmental and Sustainable Development Law from Wits. Melanie is admitted as an attorney of the High Court of South Africa, and as a solicitor of England and Wales (non-practising roll).  Melanie is currently reading towards her LLD at the University of the North-West, Potchefstroom, under the supervision of Professors Louis Kotze (NWU) and Tracy-Lynn Humby (Wits) in environmental law.  Her thesis focuses on the potential of environmental law to contribute towards South Africa’s project of transformative constitutionalism. Melanie was admitted as an attorney of the High Court of South Africa in 2006. She registered for her articles of clerkship at Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs in 2004, and after having been admitted as an attorney in 2006, practised in a commercial litigation team at the firm until the end of 2007, when she moved to Norton Rose Fulbright to develop expertise in cross-border commercial transactions. In 2009, Melanie returned to her commercial litigation team, which had moved to Hogan Lovells South Africa, where she developed expertise in the field of administrative law and procurement whilst running a general commercial litigation practice. In 2011, she was made partner at Hogan Lovells South Africa. In 2012, Melanie elected to pursue a career in academia, and commenced her LLM studies as an Academic Associate at the University of Pretoria. Later that year she was appointed as a full time lecturer. During her time in commercial legal practise, Melanie taught Constitutional Law, Foundations of South African Law and the Law of Succession part-time as a sessional lecturer at the Wits School of Law. She currently consults, part time, as a professional support lawyer to Hogan Lovells South Africa. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Environmental Law Association of South Africa, a member of the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment, and is the University's representative on the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law.

Research Interest

Melanie’s research explores whether and, if so, how administrative and environmental laws can help to achieve social justice, including improved access to basic resources for poor South Africans.