It is with great sadness that I have to inform you that our colleague and friend, Chris Nagel, Professor in the Department of Mercantile Law, lost his battle with cancer and passed away on 18 August 2019.

His contributions to the Faculty and academia have been immense. His untimely departure is a great loss to us all and he will be sorely missed. He was an academic and editor of note and a mentor to many students and staff members.

Prof Christoffel Johannes Nagel was born on 10 December 1954. After the completion of his LLB degree at UP, Prof Nagel joined the Department of Mercantile Law on 1 January 1982. He subsequently completed his doctoral thesis titled “Aspekte van voorlopige en summiere vonnis in die Suid-Afrikaanse tjekreg” (Aspects of provisional sentence and summary judgment in the South African law of cheques). He was admitted as an advocate of the High Court of South Africa in 1979. He was promoted to full professor on 1 January 1989.   

During his long academic career at UP he served on various committees. He also served a term as research coordinator of the Faculty. Among his peers he was also well known as an editor of law journals and books. He served as the secretary of the Society Hugo de Groot on whose behalf the well-known and esteemed Journal for Contemporary Roman-Dutch Law is published by LexisNexis (He has been the editor of this journal since 2002).

Prof Nagel specialised in negotiable instruments, payment methods and the law of contract but during his long academic career he also taught Introduction to Law, Roman Law and Legal Philosophy, Specific Contracts, Payment Methods and general Business Law.

He was known as a gentleman, and a person with an exceptional sense of humour and wit. He had an immense understanding and intuition of and for languages. He is also one of our last UP law lecturers who had a thorough grounding in Latin.

His spirit, legal knowledge and insight will remain with the legal community for time to come.

Our sincerest condolences go out to Prof Nagel’s family, his wife Del, their son and two daughters.

Details of the funeral:

Date:  Friday 23 August 2019
Time: 09:30
Venue: NG Gemeente Waterkloofrif at 9:30, corner of Ridgeview Road & Hartbees St, Waterkloof Ridge.