• Current

    • Pupil advocate
      Johannesburg Society of Advocates
      Victoria Mxenge Group of Advocates
      2025

    Former

    • Curator: Public Engagement
      Constitutional Court Trust
      Constitutional Court of South Africa
      2018–2024 (promoted in 2022)

    • Public Programmes Coordinator
      NWU Gallery
      North-West University
      2017

  • PhD
    Dikgang Moseneke Fellow (2022–2024) and Mellon scholar (2022)
    Centre for Rhetoric Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town
    2022–current
    Also awarded the Sir William Solomons Memorial Scholarship (2023) and a Wilfred Kramer Law Grant (2023).

    My PhD is focussed on the aesthetic and cultural transformation of South African law and jurisprudence after apartheid through an analysis of the Constitutional Court’s symbolism, including its logo, building architecture, art collection and the notion of ‘justice under a tree’.

    LLM
    Media law (research dissertation) – cum laude
    North-West University (2017–2019)
    Awarded by NWU Law: Outstanding Academic Achievement in Masters of Law Research – Cum Laude.

    My masters degree is focussed on the regulation of the South African print and broadcast media.

    LLB
    North-West University (2013–2016)

  • Professional development (selected)

    • Protea International Curatorial Exchange, John Ellerman Foundation
      Visiting scholar to the UK Supreme Court and UK Parliament, London (April 2022)
      Research award and selected participant

    • Law Scholars Works-in-Progress workshop, hosted by the Centre for Law and Society (Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town) at the Bertha Retreat, Western Cape (May 2024)
      Selected participant

    • Node Center for Curatorial Studies, Berlin
      Theoretical Thinking and Writing in Art (certificate course, 2020)
      Queer Art and Queer Curating (certificate course, 2021)

    Publications (selected)

    • Klyntji: Founding and publishing editor (2014–2024)
      Klyntji, a registered Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) and Non-Profit Organisation (NPO), publishes an online Afrikaans journal (klyntji.com) and an annual literary zine (Ons Klyntji), focussed on diverse and progressive South African arts & culture.

    • Chapter contribution for TransAfrica: The Languages of Postqueerness
      Academic book published by Bloomsbury (2024) – read more

    • Art & Justice: A short monograph series published by the Constitutional Court Trust (2020, 2021, 2023, 2024)

    • Op-eds and articles: Mail&Guardian’s Thought Leader, DG Murray Trust’s The Human Factor, LitNet, Without Prejudice law magazine

    Guest lectures and presentations (selected)

    • Department of Art History, College of Letters & Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2024)

    • Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria (2024)

    • Faculty of Law, University of Johannesburg (2022)

    • Stellenbosch University Museum (2021)

    • School of the Arts, University of Pretoria (2021)

    • North-West University (2019)

    Conferences (selected)

    • Argumentation 2023: Performativity in Law conference
      Masaryk University, Faculty of Law, Brno, Czech Republic
      Presenter
      Awarded UCT doctoral travel grant

    • World Congress of Constitutional Law 2024
      University of Johannesburg, South Africa
      Presenter

    • South African Museums Association National Conference (2021, 2022)
      Presenter
      Awarded FitzSimons Award for best paper presented at the SAMA National Conference 2021

    Society (selected)

    • Johannesburg Queer Chorus
      Member (2022)

    • NWU Gender Benefit Network (university organisation)
      Contributing member (2017–2019)

    • NWU Campus Pride (student society)
      Member (2016–2017)

    • Black Lawyers Association, Student Chapter NWU Potchefstroom, Branch Executive Committee
      Media & Publicity Officer (2016)

    • Wapad student newspaper, NWU Potchefstroom
      News & Online Editor (2015)

    • NWU Choir
      Member (2013–2014)

Email: francois@lioncachet.com

Francois Lion-Cachet is a lawyer and scholar living and working in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Lion-Cachet is undertaking pupillage at the Johannesburg Bar in 2025.

Before that, he worked at the Constitutional Court Trust from 2018 to 2024, where he specialised in promoting constitutionalism and transformation through the Constitutional Court Art Collection.

He held the Dikgang Moseneke PhD Fellowship at UCT Law between 2022–2024, where he was a Mellon scholar on the visual rhetoric of post-apartheid jurisprudence.

He was awarded his LLM in media law cum laude in 2019 from the NWU.

He founded the Klyntji journal in 2014 and established it as a public benefit organisation.