Capacity: Advocate
Admission as an advocate: March 1989
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: White
Date of Birth: September 1963
Qualifications: BA (1984) (UCT), LLB (1987) LLM: Tax Law (2005) (Wits)
Key judgments:
- Van As v Master of High Court (2024-122672) [2025] ZAGPJHC 43 (29 January 2025)
- T K v L K (2022/17006) [2023] ZAGPJHC 1268 (26 October 2023)
- Meljo Pan Africa (Pty) Ltd v Rossouw (120904-2024) [2024] ZAGPJHC 2071 (20 December 2024)
- Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Tshwane v National Council of Societies for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (24/125547) [2025] ZAGPJHC 12 (14 January 2025)
- Kunene v Malema (A2023-092235) [2025] ZAGPJHC 659 (5 August 2025)
Candidate Biography | Updated August 2025:
Advocate Suzan Wentzel is a practicing advocate of the Johannesburg Society of Advocates.
Wentzel was admitted as an advocate of the high court in March 1989 and admitted to the society in July 1989.
She completed her Bachelor of Arts, majoring in economics and psychology, with distinction in 1984 at UCT, before proceeding to obtain her LLB, cum laude, at Wits in 1987. After entering into practice for quite some time, she returned to further her education by completing her LLM in tax law with distinction at Wits in 2005.
Wentzel’s legal career can be seen, by her own words, to have been greatly influenced by her parents. Her father, Ernest Wentzel SC was a member of the Johannesburg Bar, and president of the National Union of South African Students. He was detained without trial twice and was involved in several high-profile political trials, including that of the Soweto 11. Her mother was an active member of the Black Sash. Both of her parents involvement in legal and social justice encouraged her to pursue a career in law.
After obtaining her LLB she was employed as an article clerk during 1988, before undertaking pupillage in 1989 at the Johannesburg Bar. Since joining the bar, and prior to 2019, her practice was essentially a commercial one, with a focus placed on commercial arbitrations and cases involving mining/mineral rights, land use, sectional title and township establishment. From July 2019 to March 2022 she joined and worked as an evidence leader for the Judicial Commission of Inquiry in Allegations of State Capture. She has also acted as an arbitrator on several occasions. Her time at the Commission, working on corruption matters, opened her eyes further to the importance of public law litigation, and as such on returning to private practice post-2022 her practice evolved to include briefs from the State Attorney, and matters involving tender irregularity and fraud, intellectual property, administrative law, and constitutional law. Importantly, she views her work with the Commission to be her most important contribution to the pursuit of justice.
As an advocate she has appeared in a number of significant matters, most notably Minister of International Relations and Co-operation v Simeka Group (Pty) Ltd in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). This matter involved a self-review by DIRCO of the award of a tender to a joint venture between Simeka and Regiments Capital (Pty) Ltd to finance, build and lease office space and accommodation to DIRCO for diplomats in New York. The decision by the SCA in this judgment constituted an important development of procurement law, with an emphasis having been placed on public policy and considerations of the interests of justice.
Adv Wentzel has served as an acting judge in both the Pretoria and Johannesburg high courts on 8 different occasions, the earliest being May 2015, and the latest being August 2025. During that time she has only sat in civil court. She has no outstanding reserved judgments, and hence has a history of delivering timeous written judgments.
In the matter of Kunene v Malema, the central issue was whether calling a political opponent a ‘cockroach’ amounted to hate speech under section 10 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000. The court, in a judgment written by Wilson J and agreed with by Wentzel, found that the use of the term, especially in a televised political debate, carried genocidal connotations and was thus classified as hate speech. The Equality Court’s original decision was affirmed, rejecting the appellants’ arguments that such terms were used in personal capacity or under political ideology not encompassed by the Act. The court stressed the need to impose modest limits on political discourse to prevent dehumanization and potential harm, ensuring political opposition does not devolve into social violence and hatred. Mr. Kunene, who used the term against Mr. Malema, was ordered to apologize publicly, with the decision indicating that political context heightened rather than decreased the harm potential of such speech. The ruling emphasised maintaining the dignity and social cohesion as central values in the application of free speech limits.
In another important matter, TK v LK, a foreign married couple who had formed a long-standing caring relationship with a South African minor child (E), who had been institutionalised since infancy and became an orphan, sought court intervention to be allowed to apply in the Children’s Court for E’s adoption. The Department of Social Development (DSD) opposed, relying on its Guidelines that rigidly apply the subsidiarity principle (preference for local/extended-family placements) and a prohibition on ‘pre-identification’ by foreign prospective parents. Wentzel had to determine whether the high court, as the upper guardian of minors, had jurisdiction to intervene and refer an adoption-related dispute to the Children’s Court where departmental policies and procedural barriers would otherwise preclude access to that court. She also had to determine whether the department’s subsidiary and pre-identification principles, as applied in its Practice Guidelines, may lawfully preclude foreign prospective adoptive parents who have had prior contact with a child from being considered for intercountry adoption. Wentzel found that exceptional circumstances justified intervention: without it, the applicants could not access the Children’s Court because the DSD’s policies would preclude an adoptability finding and bar accredited agencies from considering the applicants. Applying the Constitution, the Children’s Act, the Hague Convention and relevant precedents, she held that the best interests of the child are paramount and that the subsidiary and pre-identification principles cannot operate as absolute bars. Only accredited adoption social workers may determine adoptability, and statutory requirements are mandatory. She referred the matter to the Children’s Court on an expedited basis, authorised the appointment of an accredited agency and social worker to assess adoptability within fixed periods, interdicted respondents from removing E from his current placement pending outcome, and ordered the DSD to pay costs.
It will be interesting to see how Wentzel fares during the interview process, in particular against her fellow candidates, as she has been a practicing advocate for a long time but has not yet been conferred with senior counsel status, only has civil court experience during her acting stints, nor has she taken on any mentorship or leadership roles (at least as evident in her application papers).
October 2025 Interview:
The Judicial Service Commission interviewed candidates for eight vacancies in the Gauteng Division of the High Court. Following deliberations, the Commission had resolved to recommend Advocate Susan Melissa Wentzel for the position.
Advocate Susan Melissa Wentzel‘s interview was successful.