Justice Albie Sachs
By Lucianna Ciccocioppo
Not many late Friday afternoon lectures are able to fill Flavelle House. But a recent event was no ordinary talk. South African Justice - and friend of the law school - Albie Sachs chose the Faculty of Law to launch his book, The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law, Oxford University Press, on January 15, 2010. It highlights the judicial philosophy of this world-renowned constitutional expert.
In his book, Sachs asks: should a judge be an instrument of pure, detached reason, or a person imbued with human empathy? Sachs was appointed by Nelson Mandela to South Africa's first Constitutional Court, which has heard landmark cases dealing with terrorism and torture, social and economic rights, the truth commission and same-sex marriages.
The constitutional expert argued that reason and passion are inextricably linked in the judicial function.
Sachs was a leading champion in the fight for liberal, non-racial, democracy in South Africa. He was active as a young man in the Cape Bar, taking on many security cases. He was placed into solitary confinement twice during his career, and wrote extensively and soulfully about these experiences. He then went into exile in the 1960s and after more than a decade abroad, made his way back to Mozambique. He became director general of the Ministry of Justice, and was targeted by South African security forces. The forces bombed his car, which almost killed him, but Sachs made a miraculous recovery and returned to South Africa in the early 1990s.
Sachs was a central figure in the drafting of the interim constitution in 1993, and was appointed to the first panel of the South African Constitutional Court shortly thereafter, from which he has recently retired.
More than 80 people turned out to listen to Sachs at the Faculty of Law. The book launch was hosted by the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights.
Read an excerpt of his talk (PDF).
Read more about Justice Albie Sachs.
