In 1949, at the age of thirty-six, he became the youngest KC in the Union of South Africa.
Van Wyk, however resigned as Judge of Appeal in 1967 and rejoined the Cape Division of the Supreme Court.
[2] In 1973 he was appointed Judge President of the Cape, a post he had held until his death in 1975.
[1] Van Wyk acted for the state in the constitutional crisis arising from the removal of the Coloureds from the common voters' roll during the fifties.
Between 1962 and 1966 he was an ad hoc judge at the hearings of the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the South-West Africa issue.