Official funeral for Langa

Langa died in hospital on Wednesday after a long illness. He was the first black Chief Justice in South Africa following the first democratic elections in 1994. Tributes continued to pour in following the news of his death.

The Presidency said Langa was driven by "a thirst for equality and justice for all", educating himself through correspondence with Unisa and finally rising through the ranks to become one of our country's finest legal minds.

He was a founding member of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADEL), an affiliate of the United Democratic Front (UDF), and played an active role in the struggle against apartheid. He was involved in the work of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) and was a member of the Constitutional Committee of the African National Congress.

He was appointed to the then newly-established Constitutional Court of South Africa at the advent of a post-apartheid constitutional and democratic order in 1994, as one of its first judges.

He became its Deputy President in August 1997 and, in November 2001, assumed the position of Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa.

He was appointed as the country's Chief Justice, the Chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission and Head of the Constitutional Court with effect from June 2005 until his retirement in October 2009.

The National Flag will fly at half-mast at every flag pole from Monday 29 July 2013 until Saturday 3 August 2013, the day of his funeral.