Justice Albie Sachs

Albie Sachs began his career in human rights activism at the age of seventeen when as a second-year law student at the University of Cape Town, he took part in the Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign. Three years later he attended the Congress of the People at Kliptown, where the Freedom Charter was adopted. He started practice as an advocate at the Cape Bar aged 21. The bulk of his work involved defending people charged under racist statutes and repressive security laws. Many faced the death sentence. He was raided by the security police, subjected to ban orders restricting his movement, and eventually placed in solitary confinement without trial for two prolonged spells of detention. In 1966 he went into exile. After spending eleven years studying and teaching law in England, he worked for a further eleven years in Mozambique as a law professor and legal researcher. In 1988 he was blown up by a bomb placed in his car in Maputo by South African security agents, losing an arm and the sight of an eye. During the 1980s working closely with Oliver Tambo, leader of the ANC in exile, he helped draft the organization’s code of conduct, as well as its statutes. After the first democratic election in 1994, he was appointed by President Nelson Mandela to serve on the newly established Constitutional Court.