One of the leading figures in the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa returns to Cambridge this week to give two talks. Justice Albie Sachs, a Judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, was the first Nuffield Fellow of Socio-Legal Studies, at Bedford College, London, and Wolfson College, Cambridge. He will give lectures at the Centre for Public Law and to the University's South African Students group.

Born in Johannesburg in 1935, Sachs was a civil rights lawyer in the '50s and early '60s. A freedom fighter in the African National Congress, he was twice detained without trial by the South African Security Police. In 1966 he went into exile in England, where he completed a PhD at the University of Sussex. In 1977 he took up a position as law professor in Maputo, Mozambique. After nearly being killed in 1988 by a car bomb planted by the Security Police (he lost an arm), Sachs went back to England. In 1992 he returned to South Africa and took part in negotiations for the new constitution as a member of the ANC. His books, The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs and The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter, provide a moving account of his experiences. He has also written many books on human rights, on gender, the environment, and culture.

Lectures

Mondy 24 February
"Problems of sustainable development: do you have to be white to be green?"
8pm Latimer Room, Clare College

Tuesday 25th February 2003
"Tock-Tick: the working of a judicial mind - with fleeting reference to capital punishment"
5.30pm in Room LG18 (Faculty of Law, 10 West Road, Cambridge)
Enquiries to: Felicity Eves (fre20@cam.ac.uk)


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