Brigitte Mabandla

Brigitte Mabandla
in 2018
Minister of Public Enterprises
In office 25 September 2008 – 10 May 2009
President	Kgalema Motlanthe
Preceded by	Alec Erwin
Succeeded by	Barbara Hogan
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development
In office 29 April 2004 – 25 September 2008
President	Thabo Mbeki
Deputy	Johnny de Lange
Preceded by	Penuell Maduna
Succeeded by	Enver Surty
Minister of Housing
In office 26 February 2003 – 28 April 2004
President	Thabo Mbeki
Preceded by	Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele
Succeeded by	Lindiwe Sisulu
Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
In office 18 April 1995 – 25 February 2003
President	Nelson Mandela Thabo Mbeki
Minister	Ben Ngubane Lionel Mtshali
Preceded by	Winnie Mandela
Member of the National Assembly
In office 9 May 1994 – 5 May 2009
Personal details
Born	(1948-11-23) 23 November 1948 (age 75) Durban, Natal Union of South Africa
Political party	African National Congress
Spouse	Lindilwe Mabandla ​ (m. 1972)​
Alma mater	University of Zambia

Brigitte Sylvia Mabandla (born 23 November 1948) is a South African politician, lawyer and former anti-apartheid activist who served in the cabinet of South Africa from 2003 to 2009, including as the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development from 2004 to 2008. She became the South African Ambassador to Sweden in January 2020. A veteran of the African National Congress (ANC), she was an elected member of party's National Executive Committee between 1997 and 2012.

Born in Durban, Mabandla entered politics through the South African Students' Organisation at the University of the North before she went into exile with the ANC in 1975. After a decade studying and teaching law in Botswana and Zambia, she was a legal adviser to the ANC in Lusaka from 1986 to 1990. Thereafter she joined the party's delegation to the negotiations to end apartheid, where she took particular interest in the protection of women's and children's rights. She joined the National Assembly in the April 1994 general election and, after a brief period as a backbencher, she was appointed to the Government of National Unity by President Nelson Mandela, who named her as Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in 1995.

After serving in the arts and culture portfolio from 1995 to 2003, Mabandla was appointed to the cabinet of President Thabo Mbeki as Minister of Housing from 2003 to 2004. After the April 2004 general election, Mbeki appointed her as South Africa's first woman Minister of Justice, in which capacity she had a difficult and controversial relationship with the National Prosecuting Authority and its head, Vusi Pikoli. She was justice minister until September 2008, when she became Minister of Public Enterprises in the cabinet of President Kgalema Motlanthe. She resigned from legislative politics after the April 2009 general election.