Judge Albie Sachs

South African Freedom Fighter Exacts Soft Vengeance

Albie Sachs is one of South Africa’s most noted political activists and judges. Appointed by Nelson Mandela to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Albie was among the group of 11 judges who certified the country’s groundbreaking Constitution after the first democratic elections in 1994. Sachs, who holds a law degree from the University of Cape Town and a Ph.D. from Sussex University, began his legal career defending victims of apartheid’s repressive laws. His work with the freedom-fighting movement, resulted in him being put in solitary confinement for nearly six months without trial and later went into a 24-year exile in England and then Mozambique, where in April 1988 he lost his right arm and sight in one eye due to a car bomb. Sachs, who retired in 2009, has received multiple awards, including the Tang Prize for the Rule of Law. He continues to write, teach and speak internationally about the South African experience in healing divided societies. Tokyo Journal Executive Editor Anthony Al-Jamie spoke with the eloquent freedom fighter Albie Sachs about his groundbreaking achievements and his views of the world today.

TJ: I wanted to talk to you about the Constitution of South African as I know you are very proud of that. What part of the Constitution are you most proud of?
SACHS: Well, I’m proud of the fact that we did it ourselves in circumstances where nobody gave South Africa a chance to have Black and White living together as equals– respecting each other. All predictions were of a bloody racial war and total collapse of the society and the economy. Yet it was getting the Constitution that actually enabled society to start making itself together; the fact that we could agree on the new foundations of the new society and then the fact that we got what turned out to be a really brilliant Constitution that has been held up as a model to the world. Maybe because under apartheid we had been denied every right the world could imagine. Apartheid impelled us to produce its exem- plary other, a Constitution based on notions of human dignity and unity in diversity.

TJ: When you put the Constitution together, did you study the constitutions of other countries?
SACHS: We did. We studied them. We had lived in exile in other countries all over the world and received advice from everyone, but in the end we decided we had to do it ourselves.

The complete article can be found in Issue #276 of the Tokyo Journal. Click here to order from Amazon.