Shortly after he took silk in January 1994, Langa was appointed to the newly established Constitutional Court by post-apartheid President Nelson Mandela.

Leading the court during a period of political turmoil, Langa was widely respected for his mild and conciliatory manner, though he was also subject to criticism from both populist and conservative quarters.

[2][3] Their father, Simon Peter Langa, was a Zulu-speaking charismatic preacher from Natal, whose work for the Pentecostal Holiness Church had brought the family to Bushbuckridge temporarily.

[2] Their mother was Swazi, and, because their father's work required frequent travel, Langa learned several other South African languages as a child.

[4] The family left Bushbuckridge during his infancy and spent several years in various parts of the Northern Transvaal, primarily in Pietersburg, until in 1949 they settled in Stanger, Natal.

[3] He was deeply affected by this early experience of the "ugliness" of apartheid, later writing in a submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that, "In that first flush of youth, I had thought I could do anything, aspire to anything and that nothing could stop me.

[3] During his early years as an interpreter and clerk, he developed "a growing love for law as a means of solving at least some of the problems that confronted our people", and he became convinced that a legal education was a prerequisite to influencing the justice system.

[3] Two of his younger brothers, Bheki and Mandla, left South Africa for exile in the aftermath of the Soweto uprising; they ultimately became a diplomat and a novelist respectively.

[6] According to Mark Gevisser, Langa's moral opposition to capital punishment was such that he called publicly for the killers to be spared the death penalty, though they were hanged anyway.

[7] After completing his LLB, Langa left the civil service and returned to Durban, where he was admitted as an advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa in June 1977.

[1] He practised at the Natal Bar for the next 17 years, with a varied practice but an overwhelming focus on political trials brought under apartheid legislation.

[8] Langa's other activist clients included Patrick Maqubela, Jeff Radebe, Penuell Maduna, Nceba Faku, and Tony Yengeni, whom he defended against charges ranging from public violence to sabotage, treason, and murder.

[17] Early in his career as Chief Justice, Langa was tasked with mediating the resolution of a major spat in the Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa, where Judge President John Hlophe had come into conflict with several of his colleagues after accusing them of racism.

[18][19] Three years later, Hlophe was at the centre of an even larger controversy when Langa, on behalf of the full Constitutional Court bench, laid a complaint against him with the Judicial Service Commission, alleging that he had attempted improperly to influence the justices' opinion in the Constitutional Court matter of Thint v National Director of Public Prosecutions.

In mid-2008, in a report strongly denied by the Judicial Service Commission, the Times reported that the Constitutional Court was in "such a shambles" that it was having difficulty attracting candidates to fill Tholie Madala's judicial seat, partly because of the perception that Langa was a weak leader and unable to defend the judiciary against recent political criticism.

[2] However, Langa was generally admired for his tolerance of dissent in the Constitutional Court and Judicial Service Commission,[28] as well as for his "ability to calm troubled waters without raising his voice or taking the offensive".

[30] In other human rights matters, he wrote for the court in De Reuck v Director of Public Prosecutions, Witwatersrand Local Division, on child pornography,[31] and in MEC for Education, KwaZulu-Natal v Pillay, on freedom of cultural expression in public schools; the latter also marked the first time that the Constitutional Court considered discrimination as defined by the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act.

[33] Academic Theunis Roux admired Langa's majority judgments in Thint and Glenister v President for "taking the political heat" out of sensitive matters without resorting to "a veil of legalism".

[28] However, some commentators criticised his synthesis of the Bill of Rights and customary law in Bhe v Magistrate, Khayelitsha, a landmark case on male primogeniture.

Implicit in the provisions and tone of the Constitution are values of a more mature society, which relies on moral persuasion rather than force; on example rather than coercion... Those who are inclined to kill need to be told why it is wrong.

[37] In later years, he led a delegation of the International Bar Association on a review of criminal procedure in Cameroon, and he was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague.

[15] Langa retired from the judiciary on 11 October 2009 alongside Justices Yvonne Mokgoro, Kate O'Regan, and Albie Sachs; each had served their full term in the Constitutional Court.

[44] He was granted a special official funeral, which was held on 3 August at Durban City Hall; it was televised and featured a speech by Jacob Zuma, who by then was the President of South Africa.

[47] In April 2008, President Mbeki inducted him into the Order of the Baobab, Gold for "his exceptional service in law, constitutional jurisprudence and human rights".