Yana van Leeve is an Executive at ENS in the Public Law practice.

Yana specialises in administrative, constitutional and regulatory law.  Her focus is in dealing with the interaction between corporate and commercial law on the one hand, and public law on the other hand.

Her experience includes advising on the Public Finance Management Act and the Municipal Finance Management Act and the associated regulatory framework (including procurement and supply chain management issues); advising in relation to the Municipal Systems Act, the Municipal Structures Act and the associated regulatory framework, advising government departments, municipalities and public entities on contractual relationships with service providers and advising private entities on interactions and relations with government departments and public entities, including operating within highly regulated industries.  She has also advised on South Africa’s expropriation regime, local government land use schemes, access to information disputes under the Promotion of Access to Information Act, servitude access issues under the Electronic Communications Act and human settlement development in the mining sector and bulk infrastructure development projects in the local government sphere.

In addition, Yana is experienced in investigative and reporting work, including conducting investigations on behalf of and compiling reports for, municipalities and State-owned companies and banking institutions in relation to procurement; administrative and internal procedures, including drafting submissions on proposed legislation.  She also has extensive superior court and appellate court litigation concerning decisions by organs of state.

Yana has advised clients in the following industries: banking and finance, basic education, electronic communications, early childhood development, energy, mining, private higher education, strategic oil reserves, human settlements, real estate and pharmaceuticals.

Yana also publishes on constitutional law, with a special focus in education.

Acta Juridica: A Transformative Justice – Essays in Honour of Pius Langa Brickhill and van Leeve “Transformative Constitutionalism: Guiding Light or Empty Slogan?” in Acta Juridica (2015) Cape Town.

New York Law Review: Celebrating twenty years of South African Constitutionalism, New York, USA Authored and presented a paper entitled “Mobilising the right to basic education in South Africa, what has the law achieved so far?” (2014).

Constitutional Court Review VI van Leeve “Executive heavy handedness and the right to basic education: A reply to Sandra Fredman” Juta (2016) Johannesburg.

Collection on Education Rights Brickhill and van Leeve Litigating Education Rights in South Africa 2018 Policy Press Oxford.

South African Journal on Human Rights, Bryer and van Leeve (forthcoming) Can the universal provision of ECD simultaneously provide decent jobs ? The risks of planting two trees with one seed.

• Decoding “specific goals”: An analysis of the new preferential procurement regulations, 2022

  By Yana van Leeve, Sibongile Sibeko |March 2023