[1] According to the Mail & Guardian, de Lange made his early political connections while an advocate in the mid- and late 1980s, representing anti-apartheid activists in the Cape Town area, among them Tony Yengeni and Ashley Forbes.
[1] From 1993 to 1994, while working full-time as director of NADEL's research and training unit, he was also a member of the ANC's delegation to the Multi-Party Negotiating Forum that ended apartheid.
[1] As chair of the justice committee, de Lange was known "as a bull in a china shop"[2] and for what the Mail & Guardian called "his robust comments".
[10] After the 2004 general election, President Thabo Mbeki appointed de Lange as Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, in which capacity he deputised Brigitte Mabandla.
[18] De Lange remained in Parliament as a backbencher until November 2010, when the ANC nominated him to chair the Portfolio Committee on Water and Environmental Affairs.