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  • [ Silence ]

  • >> Welcome to the UCL Bloomsbury Theatre this evening

  • for a most special lecture.

  • It's my enormous pleasure to be able to introduce to you one

  • of the world's most renowned judges,

  • a judge renowned not just for judging,

  • for that is what judges do, but for a depth of humanity

  • and vision, this is unusual amongst the judiciary

  • of the 21st century.

  • I should like to add a personal note, I first knew Albie Sachs,

  • not as a judge but as a young law lecturer.

  • We met about 37 years ago.

  • I, in short trousers having arrived

  • from the British Colonies in New Zealand and Albie,

  • as a rather older and wiser man then as now, and somebody

  • who acted as a very significant mentor for those of us

  • who participated with him, I remember, in faculty boards

  • and examiners boards and Albie was the one

  • with the greatest patience.

  • The man who found it unnecessary to fail anybody or to think ill

  • of anybody, even of me, but somebody who brought

  • to our deliberations, even then,

  • a sense of fairness and of justice.

  • In the mid 1970's he was to leave us and to return

  • to Africa, not to the South Africa where, in the 1960's,

  • his enthusiasm for justice had been punished most severely.

  • He was confined to solitary confinement under the 90 day law

  • of the apartheid regime, released

  • and immediately re-confined for a further 90 days.

  • It was an experience that was relayed to the world in his book

  • and subsequently West End play, The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs.

  • But it was when he returned to Africa, on this occasion

  • to Mozambique, that the apartheid regime struck most

  • cruelly with a car bomb that maimed him severely.

  • Many will recall his account on Desert Island Discs

  • of recovering from that blast and realising

  • that he was still alive and that everything still was ahead

  • of him and that everything still was possible.

  • Fifteen years ago, in the new South Africa, he was appointed

  • to the constitutional court.

  • And those who have visited Johannesburg will see,

  • rising out of the ruins of the old prison,

  • this architectural triumph to justice

  • and to fairness in a new society.

  • He has just after 15 years of service finished his term

  • of office as a judge and he's joined us here tonight.

  • Ladies and gentlemen, please would you join me

  • in welcoming Albie Sachs.

  • [applause]

  • >> The theme of the talk tonight is from refugee

  • to judge of refugee law.

  • And the first time I came as a refugee

  • to the United Kingdom I was smiling on the outside,

  • appeared to be buoyant, on top of the world, free, free at last

  • but inside destroyed in turmoil.

  • Anybody who'd seen me stepping onto the Union-Castle back

  • in Cape Town would have seen somebody writhed in smiles.

  • I don't think I threw streamers, which is what we used to do,

  • down to the people on the dock side.

  • Music was playing.

  • The ship went [noise] as it pulled out.

  • Everybody was cheerful and I appeared

  • to be cheerful along with everybody else.

  • And I did enjoy that trip.

  • I played tenniquoits and was actually run

  • around the Cape Town Castle, from Cape Town

  • to South Hampton in 1966, run around.

  • I played ping pong.

  • I played Bridge.

  • I took part in the fancy dress.

  • I sort of remember I was the spy who came

  • in from the cold blowing my nose.

  • [laughter] I was away from the security police,

  • away from the detention

  • but inside there was something damaged, broken,

  • deeply sore and troubled.

  • And I so recall when I got to London the thing I liked

  • to do most of all was just to go up to Hampstead Heath and lie

  • on the soft grass and look up and see the kites flying.

  • And just that sense of peace, of peace, of being able to go

  • to sleep at night and not feel, will they come?

  • [knocking] Will they come for me?

  • To be able to use the telephone

  • and not feel are they listening in?

  • To be able to open a letter and feel

  • that this was private correspondence.

  • To be able to walk down the street

  • and feel I'm not being followed,

  • to feel that my car has not been tampered with.

  • It was a sense of elation and a sense of happiness of being

  • in the United Kingdom, being in a free country

  • and being a free person.

  • And yet inside there was something deeply troubled,

  • deeply damaged.

  • I'd been detained, as Malcolm said, under the 90 day law

  • without charge, without a right to go to court, without access

  • to council, without access to my family.

  • Locked up in a concrete cube, like thousands

  • of other South Africans and like thousands and tens of thousands

  • and maybe hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world.

  • And I would stare at my toes and stare at the wall, at my toes,

  • the wall, my toes, my toes, the wall and try to invent things

  • to keep myself alive and active

  • and to feel I'm a real human being.

  • And I would invent activities.

  • I've tried to count the number of states, the United States

  • in America and I'd start with A and go through the A's, Alabama,

  • Arizona, Arkansas, I used to call it Arkansas then

  • and through the B's and the C's and I would get up to 40 and 41

  • but I didn't have a pencil,

  • I couldn't write any of the names down.

  • And I would sing songs.

  • I would start with Always, Because, Charmaine,

  • be quite an interesting profile of the popular hit tunes of 1964

  • and Always has become almost a theme song of mine.

  • Daisy, I had some problems with X so I would sing Deep

  • in the Heart of Texas.

  • That was the best I could do there.

  • [singing] I'll be living here always, year after year always,

  • in this little cell, that I know so well, I'll be living swell,

  • always, always and I'd waltz around on my own

  • and feel rather amused that Noel Coward, who wasn't known

  • as a great freedom fighter and supporter [background laughter]

  • of evolutionary causes was keeping up my spirits

  • in police fashion near Cape Town.

  • [singing] I'll be staying in always,

  • keeping up my chin always.

  • Not for but an hour, not for but a week,

  • not for 90 days but always.

  • And then I'd sort of waltz around

  • and feel sorry for myself.

  • And try and buoy myself up.

  • And again, as Malcolm said, after 90 days somebody comes

  • to my cell and says, gives me back my tie,

  • gives me back my watch, my shoelaces, put on my clothes

  • that I wore when I was entering my chambers

  • and detained initially.

  • Go down the stairs into the charge office station.

  • Commander says you're free to go and I'm looking at him very,

  • very, very suspiciously.

  • I don't believe anything they say.

  • But just hearing the words you're free to go and I get up

  • and I walk out and before I reach the street the main

  • interrogator comes up to me, big smile on his face,

  • he puts out his hand, I think that's nice.

  • He shakes my hand and says I'm placing you under arrest.

  • Something I think I learned from England you touch the body

  • of the person when you arrest the body.

  • He did it through a handshake.

  • I go back, give up my watch, my tie, my shoelaces,

  • go back into the cell again.

  • The law is being complied with.

  • You can be held for 90 days, released for a few minutes

  • and held for another 90 days.

  • I did hold out on that occasion and when I was released

  • as suddenly as I was detained, I feel absolutely joyous.

  • This was a real release this time and I put

  • on some tennis shoes that I've had and I ran from the centre

  • of Cape Town to the nearest beach,

  • which was about 10 miles away.

  • I'd never run a distance like that before

  • and flung myself clothed into the waves.

  • And the story went out, Albie Sachs runs to the sea

  • and people thought I was joyous and happy and part of me was

  • but part of me was severely damaged inside.

  • And being detained once doesn't give you immunity

  • against being detained again.

  • Two years later I'm locked up a second time

  • and this time it's a team of interrogators

  • down from Johannesburg with disdain

  • for the Cape Town interrogators

  • who hadn't broken me the first time and they worked

  • around the clock and they banged the table and they shout

  • and shout and shout for 15 minutes and then total silence.

  • And an hour passes and they bang on the table, shouting,

  • shouting, noise, noise, noise and then total silence.

  • And it goes on hour after hour, hour after hour

  • and eventually some food is brought to me and I see kind

  • of a smirk on their face

  • and I realise afterwards there's something in that food

  • that makes me even more tired.

  • And I go through the night and I'm holding out

  • and I'm thinking how long, how long can I carry on

  • and if I break, and as counsel so many of my clients had broken

  • and when they broke after two or three or four days

  • of non sleeping, they broke completely.

  • They had no resistance at all and I'm starting

  • to think am I going to break, am I going to break?

  • And eventually at about 5:00

  • in the morning I collapse onto the floor.

  • And I see these shoes, black shoes, brown shoes,

  • crowding around, muttering, talking, talking,

  • the moment they'd be waiting for, the moment I'd be waiting

  • and water is poured onto me and I'm lifted up

  • and my eyes are pried open and I sit

  • on the chair and I collapse again.

  • This happens three or four times and each time they lift me up

  • and they're in control of me and my body,

  • my fatigue is fighting my mind

  • and I'm feeling that I'm breaking.

  • To this day I've not got over that moment of expert loss

  • of dignity, of autonomy, of a person feeling myself be able

  • to determine, decide what I'm doing

  • because my body was fighting my mind

  • and they were fighting my body and I think there was something

  • in the food that even weakened my resistance.

  • And now I'm trying to control my breakdown,

  • not avoid of breakdown but to control, to control,

  • to manage what I'm going to say.

  • And I started, when I did speak, indicating the circumstances

  • in which I was making a statement, the collapsing

  • on the floor, the water beads, all written down,

  • all written down, all written down and if I see

  • that half smirk on the face of the lawyer,

  • Swanapool was his name, the person in charge.

  • And they're shuffling pages around and I'm signing pages

  • and I realise afterwards that he has just got rid of that page

  • in which I made that particular statement.

  • It's gone.

  • It's vanished.

  • And I feel it's another humiliation

  • and they outsmarted me and they took advantage of my fatigue.

  • And so I travelled on the boat and I'm throwing the tenaquoit

  • and my body is exerting itself.

  • After my second release my colleagues wanted

  • to know am I running to the sea again

  • and I said no, take me home.

  • Take me home.

  • And I remember some years later I was a very keen mountain

  • climber and one day, those of you who know Cape Town,

  • there's Devil's Peak on the one side, there's Table Mountain

  • and Lion's Head the third.

  • And we came between Lion's Head and Table Mountain

  • and I said I'm going up Devil's Peak.

  • I climbed three mountains in one day,

  • totally exhausted at the end of it.

  • And my psychiatrist friend said it's a well known thing,

  • it's called in German [foreign language] syndrome.

  • That's men getting old start fearing for loss

  • of their virility and going to extreme forms of endeavour.

  • The only problem was I was 31.

  • And yet the [foreign language] fitted exactly,

  • that sense of humiliation and defeat and even

  • as to do something absolutely strenuous

  • to prove that I'm still real.

  • So I'm lying on Hampstead Heath and watching the kites and a lot

  • of this sense of hurt and damage of being a refugee

  • like myself running through me and I'm grateful

  • to the United Kingdom for receiving me.

  • It's not everywhere in the world I could go.

  • And yet I'm angry and I'm angry at the very people

  • who are being kind to me.

  • I'm angry at my dependence.

  • I'm angry at my old business.

  • And running through my head is if it wasn't for you,

  • the United Kingdom, colonising the world,

  • British people going everywhere, coming in not as refugees,

  • not getting permits, not being permitted,

  • just saying we have a right because we are superior,

  • we are more civilised.

  • We can go to Africa.

  • We can go to Australia.

  • We can go to India.

  • We can go to South America.

  • We can go where we want.

  • We can take slaves.

  • We can set up imperial rule and this is all going through me

  • and I'm feeling strange.

  • These people have been kind to me and yet I'm cross with them.

  • And then angry because the Vietnam War was on and I got

  • to know London marching

  • from Hyde Park Corner to Trafalgar square.

  • I knew that journey so well, so well.

  • I think there are people in this audience

  • who might remember those marches if you went on them.

  • And angry that Britain is taking such a soft stand

  • on the [inaudible] in Rhodesia and finding reasons

  • to collaborate with the partite

  • and then thinking what's the matter with me?

  • I'm being received into this country

  • and then I'd studied a bit of Freud

  • and I had some understanding of this displacement,

  • which I think most refugees in most parts of the world have.

  • The very support you're getting from particular countries,

  • the kindness that's been shown to you, because it's

  • on such unequal terms, gives rise to a projected rage

  • against the very people who are your benefactors.

  • And however much intellectually you tell yourself it's unjust,

  • it's unfair, that's just part of the existence.

  • I got so much living in this country,

  • intellectually, socially.

  • The Jail Diary was published, my book.

  • My PhD I did at Sussex University.

  • It was published within South Africa.

  • The Stephanie On Trial,

  • the follow up to the Jail Diary published.

  • Just before I left

  • for Mozambique I'm told there's a play writer called David

  • Edgar, who wants to interview you before you go.

  • The Royal Shakespeare Company want to make a play

  • out of your two books and I distrusted him.

  • I told him as much as I could.

  • I went off to Mozambique feeling displaced, having felt displaced

  • and the minute I landed

  • in Mozambique I felt connected and at home.

  • The second time I came as a refugee

  • to the United Kingdom I appeared to be broken.

  • I'd lost an arm, the sight of an eye, I was covered in bandages.

  • I traveled first class on the airplane for the first time

  • in my life and I was unconscious from up here to London

  • but inside I was joyous.

  • It was the type of inverse of what had appeared

  • to be the situation when I first came as a refugee and CARA,

  • the body that looks after refugee academics

  • from different parts of the world,

  • I think I'm the only person twice on their books

  • and original each time.

  • [ Silence ]

  • In Mozambique, life was complicated, it was difficult

  • and yet I felt so connected to that country.

  • Its problems were the kind of problems of South Africa.

  • It wasn't just the lights, the air, the flowers, the rainfall,

  • things that you forget about that come through to you very,

  • very strongly when you return.

  • Even the night sky, the stars,

  • if you don't think about, they're different.

  • The vegetation is different.

  • It was the social problems.

  • Had to learn and I learned Portuguese, to express myself

  • or articulate in different ways.

  • And it made me think my years

  • in the United Kingdom, I wasn't an exile.

  • I was living in exile.

  • I was soaking up what I could to take back home

  • to South Africa one day, free democratic South Africa

  • and I was writing, I was giving.

  • And the more I submerge myself in British life,

  • the more I felt I'm getting things to take home

  • with me afterwards to South Africa.

  • I didn't have that conflict that many people who have immigrated

  • to another country have.

  • To what extent do I give up my emotional

  • and cultural patriotism of my youth, growing up,

  • to immerse myself in the new country?

  • The more I immersed myself the more I felt I could take

  • home afterwards.

  • You have to remember I did family law.

  • I did criminal law.

  • I did contract law.

  • I did torte.

  • I did international law.

  • I put on a course in law and racial discrimination.

  • I think the first course

  • in gender discrimination of its kind.

  • I wrote the book Sexism of the Law.

  • It was a vital and active life that I lived

  • and somehow the word refugee just doesn't seem right.

  • I didn't feel a refugee.

  • I felt part of this hugely diverse country called the

  • United Kingdom, living in this amazingly diverse city called

  • London, commuting to Southampton or first

  • to Brighton and back again.

  • In Mozambique it was dangerous but the danger wasn't coming

  • to me from the Mozambique state, it was coming

  • from across the border.

  • And I felt a certain pride when I queued up with everybody else

  • for our rations of rice, meat maybe once a week,

  • eggs maybe once a week, bread every day.

  • And working in the new newly created faculty of law

  • and doing research afterwards.

  • And getting that feeling of coming to grips with the sort

  • of problems that began to have in South Africa that we have

  • to deal with, I would have to deal with one day and learning,

  • learning, learning all the time.

  • And they wanted me to register as a refugee and I didn't want

  • to register as a refugee.

  • That you being a refugee you kind of has connotation

  • of a rather helpless person who's washed up somewhere,

  • who has to be cared for and looked after.

  • That wasn't me.

  • I didn't feel in that sense I was a refugee.

  • I was a person.

  • I was Albie Sachs.

  • I was part of the ANC Freedom Struggle,

  • the antiapartheid freedom struggle

  • but they said being a refugee will give you a certain

  • protection, international law principles in relation

  • to refugees and it's for your own good.

  • And wanting to be a good guest

  • of the Mozambique government I signed on as a refugee.

  • It didn't protect me.

  • I was blown up, nevertheless.

  • And I sort of remember something terrible was happening,

  • just total darkness.

  • I didn't know what it was.

  • And I disappear into nothingness and I hear a voice

  • in darkness saying Albie, this is Eva Careedo you're

  • in the Maputo Central Hospital.

  • Your arm is in lamentable condition.

  • You have to face the future with courage.

  • And I say what happened?

  • And I hear a woman's voice saying it was a car bomb.

  • I faint again but this time into joy because I know I'm safe.

  • I'm not being kidnapped and taken to South Africa.

  • And time passes and I'm conscious

  • and I feel light, very light.

  • In the darkness I feel a sheet over me

  • and I tell myself a joke.

  • Some of you would have heard me telling the joke.

  • Others of you would have heard the joke anyhow.

  • But Himie Cohan falls off a bus.

  • He gets up and he does this and someone said Himie,

  • I didn't know you were Catholic.

  • And he says what do you mean Catholic?

  • Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch.

  • [laughter].

  • And I'm lying on something and started

  • with testicles, feeling all in order.

  • And I've tried to be macho without much success all my life

  • but the word went round to the ANC camps,

  • the first thing Albie did was reach for his balls [laughter]

  • and I became a macho hero for 15 minutes.

  • I feel my heart, wallet, okay.

  • I feel my head.

  • There are bandages there but there're no craters.

  • I'm going to be okay.

  • And then my hand slides down and I remember what was said

  • about my arm in lamentable condition.

  • And I faint but faint into joy because I know I've survived.

  • That moment that every Freedom Fighter has,

  • will they come for me today?

  • Will they come for me tonight?

  • Will I get through the night?

  • Will I get through 24 hours?

  • And if they come for me, will I be brave?

  • And they've come for me and they've tried to kill me

  • and I'd got through and I'd only lost an arm.

  • And I felt joyous.

  • And that was in 1988, more than 20 years ago.

  • And I still feel joyous.

  • I felt somehow as I got through and as I recovered,

  • my country would get through, my country would recover,

  • it is a non rational but total conviction.

  • And I had to learn to do everything again,

  • even my simple body functions.

  • And eventually the bandages come off

  • and I see I've lost the sight of one eye.

  • I can see through the other eye.

  • And I had to learn to sit up and I had to learn to stand.

  • And by now I've been transferred to the London Hospital

  • where my brother, now sadly my late brother,

  • Johnny, was an immunologist.

  • And I have to learn to stand.

  • And I had a relationship with the nurses

  • who would take off my bandages, wash my body

  • with such tenderness and love and care and clean out.

  • I still remember saying one day as she pulled out a little bit

  • of shrapnel, let's get rid of this rubbish

  • and I said don't call it rubbish.

  • That's my car you're speaking about.

  • [laughter] And it gave me a totally different relationship

  • with this country.

  • No ambiguity.

  • No rage. This is organised love and care at a physical level,

  • kindness of people who didn't know me

  • but who were just looking after me professionally

  • and somebody who'd been victim of a burn out rage in that way.

  • And it's again a very beautiful bond that has remained with me

  • to this day and that I just appreciate enormously,

  • more powerful than being put on at the Del Mar Theatre,

  • marvellous though that was, more powerful than broadcasting,

  • even teaching at South Hampton, which I enjoyed so much.

  • There was just something in those hands and the courtesy

  • and the affection and the daily care.

  • There would be hard moments.

  • About 4:00 in the morning, it's still dark,

  • the pain killers are wearing off.

  • I'm lying alone in the bed.

  • There's no activity around me.

  • And I am feeling very alone.

  • And then again I would sing to myself, [singing] it's me,

  • it's me oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

  • It's me, it's me oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

  • It's not my brother, nor my sister but it's me oh Lord,

  • and so I would go through all the different relatives I could

  • imagine, just feeling a little sorry

  • for myself, consoling myself.

  • I'm not a religious person but the spiritual came to me.

  • I think I'd first heard it on a record

  • by Paul Robeson just consoling me in that moment

  • when I'm totally alone.

  • And then the day would brighten up and the nurses would be

  • around and caring for me and some visitors would come.

  • And the day comes where I have to put my feet over the edge

  • of the bed and the physiotherapist said Albie,

  • you're going to stand today and put your feet down and tuck

  • in your bum, I think she said your bum.

  • And I'm terrified.

  • My one heel was shattered.

  • Some weeks had passed, can I possibly stand?

  • I'm going to collapse.

  • And she says and stand up and I feel my body going up.

  • And I still remember there was a mirror in front

  • and I see this lean face with a shaven head and scars

  • and bandages looking so, so, so serious going up past the mirror

  • and then coming down again,

  • that same serious face past the mirror and back

  • onto the bed triumphant.

  • And for this moment I can stand.

  • Look, mommy, I can stand.

  • It was like the first time I stood as a child.

  • And such an appreciation,

  • especially for the physiotherapist,

  • who found the courage inside me, even more than the doctors

  • who were medicating and pushing things into me and testing me

  • and speaking about me and sometimes speaking with me.

  • And so I recovered.

  • I learned to stand.

  • I learned to walk.

  • I still remember the saying, which I offer

  • to anybody who's got leg problems, you don't know,

  • when you're going upstairs and downstairs,

  • which leg do you lead with.

  • And it's the good foot up to heaven

  • and the bad foot down to hell.

  • [laughter] And then I learned to run.

  • I had to learn to write with my left, to tie a shoelace,

  • to tie a tie but each time it was

  • like feeling I'm being reborn.

  • Naked you come into the world, naked I almost went out,

  • naked I came back into the world.

  • It's wonderful to have that second chance, almost to be

  • like reborn without some huge act of emotional faith.

  • It was just physically being reconstituted as a human being

  • and recovering my dignity and then the marvellous period

  • of preparing for a new constitution for South Africa.

  • The very first talk that I gave was at the LSE.

  • I wish I could say it was at UCL but it happened to be at LSE.

  • I still remember how drab that room was.

  • It Mozambique, even if it was just a janitor there would be

  • at least one flower, one plant.

  • And the difficulty of organising your mind,

  • lying in a hospital bed.

  • The only sport I could watch

  • when I was quite a lot better was snooker.

  • It was so quiet and all you would hear would be a click

  • and maybe a little bit of applause.

  • I couldn't watch the tennis, the energy, the tension.

  • And hearing a program about the society for the protection

  • of hedgehogs at the roadside and thinking it's amazing to be

  • in a country where you can have a society for the protection

  • of roadside hedgehogs.

  • [laughter] Talk about diversity, talk about being able

  • to do the things that's important to you.

  • There was another story about my, going back to South Africa,

  • voting for the first time as an equal, helping to write,

  • part of the huge team that wrote the first constitution,

  • being on the court.

  • That's another whole story.

  • But my second presentation that I gave after coming

  • out of hospital was to the Centre for Refugee Studies

  • at Oxford, which was fairly newly created.

  • And I was invited because I had been a refugee,

  • a double refugee.

  • But what was so valuable and important

  • to me was seeing a completely new vision

  • of how refugees should be regarded and treated

  • in the world, not helpless, pitiful people but the right

  • to be in tents, to be given food, to be given supper,

  • to have relief from persecution but as lively independent beings

  • who have something to contribute to the country

  • that they're going to and who has something to take back

  • when eventually they get home.

  • As active neo citizens and Barbara, not very diplomatic

  • but very powerful, very incisive,

  • training a whole new generation of people refugee studies,

  • creating a different vision of refugees

  • and how refugees should be treated.

  • And separating out refugee law from immigration law,

  • not to say that immigration law shall be cruel and inhuman

  • and so on but understanding refugees are kind

  • of minor citizens deprived of the right to citizenship

  • in their own countries, either through persecution or because

  • of a collapsed state that's unable to protect them

  • and tossed into some kind of international citizenship.

  • And seeing refugees, once you're admitted as a refugee,

  • who knows who might be refugees in future,

  • all that load was in my head.

  • I'm on the constitutional court.

  • And five, six, seven, eight years ago the case comes to us.

  • And now I'm a judge.

  • I'm sitting in my green robes.

  • And the question arises to what extent does my whole experience

  • of being a double refugee enter

  • into my decision making as a judge?

  • Judges are supposed to be dispassionate, independent,

  • without fear, favour or prejudice.

  • Does that mean that I have to discard everything

  • that I experienced, that I went through?

  • Is all irrelevant?

  • Or does it mean I simply come up with a subjective view.

  • I like refugees.

  • I've been a refugee.

  • I'm gonna do everything I damn well can on the bench to protect

  • and support the rights of refugees.

  • But I've taken an oath without fear, favour or prejudice.

  • What's the relevance of my subjective experience?

  • But the court divided.

  • The issue is more or less as follows, the refugees act,

  • South Africa has a very progressive refugees act,

  • the practice doesn't always measure up to the law

  • but the law is in keeping with international law

  • and the conventions for the world,

  • and there's a special African convention,

  • the rights of refugees.

  • And it says that refugees have a right to work in the country.

  • Once you're registered as a refugee you have a right

  • to work, that any international laws incorporated

  • into our statute.

  • There was a separate statute that deals with regulation

  • of the private security industry.

  • And one of the conditions for being registered as a worker

  • in the private security industry is

  • that you be a South African citizen or a permanent resident.

  • And refugees only become permanent residents

  • after five years.

  • It so happened that many of the refugees found jobs

  • as car guards, as people providing a very simple form

  • of protection.

  • They didn't carry guns.

  • They didn't have uniforms.

  • But that was a job, an unpleasant job,

  • often in unpleasant weather but the refugees are so eager

  • to get any kind of work.

  • In quite large numbers, it was the biggest sector of employment

  • for refugees and the Ministry of Home Affairs

  • at first had been pretty liberal in allowing refugees to work

  • in that area but eventually a blanket ban was placed

  • on any refugees working in the private security industry.

  • And I came to court.

  • And an act eventually reached us on appeal and the court divided

  • into two groups, group A and I call it group B. And group A,

  • who happened to be in a minority, took the position

  • that this was unfair discrimination against refugees,

  • that there should be equated law to permanent residence

  • because they couldn't be expelled

  • but would become permanent residence.

  • They had a right to work in terms

  • of international refugees act and excluding them

  • from work was unfair discrimination.

  • The majority position was that if there was no possibility

  • of an exemption for refugees to work

  • in the security industry then it would have

  • been unconstitutional.

  • But there was a sub-clause in the act

  • that gave the authorities the right to grant an exemption

  • and the majority said if the exemption was applied

  • in appropriate way then you have a right

  • to adjust administrative action, it's in our constitution.

  • And if you are unjustly prevented from working

  • in the security industry on a case by case basis,

  • you can get judicial review.

  • That coupled with the fact

  • that after five years you'd become a permanent residence,

  • coupled with the fact that you could work in any other industry

  • in other sector of life, meant it was not unfair.

  • Now the question was which way would Albie go?

  • With the minority, striking down as unconstitutional,

  • or with the majority saying

  • that the exemption appropriately applied could save the

  • constitutionality of that particular statute.

  • By now I'd been a judge for a decade

  • and I remember something what had been said to me

  • by Justice Izzy Fuego [phonetic] just before I became a judge.

  • He was a Danish Judge on the European Court of Human Rights

  • and he said it's a very interesting division

  • on European Court between judges

  • of northern Europe and southern Europe.

  • Judges in southern Europe feel that their job is to distinguish

  • between right and wrong, justice and injustice,

  • lawfulness and unlawfulness.

  • He said the judges in northern Europe have a

  • different approach.

  • The problem is much more to distinguish

  • between right and right.

  • In a modern democratic society there are many competing claims

  • and you have to hold the balance between the different sectors

  • of society, fleeing the state, the individual,

  • different sectors of society, and provide,

  • usually using principles proportionality,

  • a proper balancing in terms of what the outcome should be.

  • I've never forgotten that.

  • And then meeting with Justice Peter Grim [phonetic]

  • from the German Constitutional Court,

  • who introduced me to proportionality.

  • And Malcolm mentioned Desert Island Discs,

  • I might say not everybody who becomes a refugee travels

  • on the Cape Town Castle, sadly.

  • Not everybody as a refugee gets onto Desert Island Discs,

  • which was the height of my cultural achievement,

  • [laughter] possibly in my life, certainly in the United Kingdom.

  • But if I had to go to a deserted island as a judge

  • with only two items, I would take human dignity

  • and proportionality.

  • So now I'm sitting up on the bench and I have to decide

  • between these different visions.

  • And I'm thinking what is it that we do when we are judging?

  • And again I recall a discussion I had when I taught

  • at the University of Toronto

  • with Professor Jennifer Nedelsky.

  • So this was my recall of something that she had said.

  • She'd been taught by Hannah Arendt

  • and Hannah Arendt was dealing

  • with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

  • So it is my recall of what she had said about some courses

  • that she had had based on an interpretation

  • of an early 19th century Latin and German philosopher

  • but basically it was distinguishing between reason,

  • reasoning and judging.

  • Reasoning is impeccable.

  • It's a logic that doesn't permit of variations.

  • Judging has a completely different quality.

  • It can include elements of reasoning

  • but judging is not driven simply by an internal logic

  • and she gave the example of saying

  • that this picture is beautiful.

  • If you say this picture is beautiful you are saying

  • that in terms of criteria beauty for the community of people

  • who are involved in the judging decision or affected by it

  • and if these criteria are established over the course

  • of time it could be in relation to artwork,

  • it could be in relation to justice, fairness, equity,

  • right, wrong and you, as she said, quoting Hannah Arendt,

  • quoting Immanuel Kant, you woo your audience.

  • You try to persuade them.

  • It's all an impeccable logic that's right and wrong.

  • One and one makes two.

  • You don't woo.

  • That's it.

  • It's imperative.

  • You woo, you try to persuade and that just fit

  • in with what we are doing as judges.

  • There has to be a logical persuasiveness

  • but the problem arises when some colleagues have beautiful logic

  • to show that it's unfair and other colleagues also very,

  • very logical, very consistent, very coherent to show

  • that it's not unfair because exemptions can be granted.

  • And it also made me think

  • about Ronald Watkins [phonetic] concept

  • of this one right answer to any legal problem.

  • And we herculean judges must find that right answer matronly

  • and I feel that's not what I'm doing and I wouldn't

  • like to say I'm right and my colleagues are wrong.

  • I'd like to say I'm giving it my best shot.

  • There's an ongoing dialogue, an argument, a disputation,

  • sufficient at any moment to have a decision

  • that could be legally binding but I just see it

  • as inherently unstable in the sense of the dialogue continues,

  • myself with my colleagues, my court with other courts,

  • with judges elsewhere, with people arguing,

  • with academics criticising, to me that's built

  • into the very nature of judging.

  • And so now I have to choose between the two.

  • The obvious answer for me would have been

  • to say well I've been a refugee and it's better

  • to enable all refugees to be able to work.

  • Why shouldn't they work

  • in the security industry as anywhere else?

  • That's very important for so many of them.

  • Let them in.

  • And yet I thought that one has to conceptualise far more,

  • regarding meant to cause, there's no reason

  • at all why refugees shouldn't do that.

  • Doing so many of the humdrum but necessary tasks,

  • patrolling buildings and so on,

  • but there are some very important public

  • and private installations and individuals

  • where to allow somebody whom you don't know anything

  • about that come to your country, you can't check up on them,

  • you can't get police records.

  • They must wait for five years, contextualising that way,

  • distinguish between different forms of security jobs,

  • in those circumstances it would not be unfair and that's

  • where the exemption would come in.

  • And then what become important to all of us on the court,

  • we're very insistent on this, it's not enough just

  • to tell the refugees afterwards, you should have looked

  • at section 21.6 or whatever it is,

  • where you can get an exemption.

  • The officials, the bureaucrats have to explain,

  • have to explain your rights in a language,

  • through an interpreter if necessary.

  • Encourage people to apply for exemptions.

  • Explain what the criteria are.

  • The kind of circumstances maybe have regulations which lay

  • down the certain kinds of job

  • where an exemption will be automatic.

  • And so my judgment was not to support the striking down,

  • was not an automatic approval, though I admired the judgment

  • from my colleagues who wanted to strike down

  • and an judicial emotion behind it

  • but I felt a contextual approach would be too expand the nature

  • of the exemption and to say the fact

  • that you're a refugee already gives you a strong head start,

  • almost a presumption, that you should get the job unless the

  • particular security industry work

  • for which you're applying is so sensitive, it's so specific

  • that one needs that extra guarantee and you have

  • to wait for five years.

  • But then it wasn't just the outcome that was important.

  • The language you use in a judgment,

  • the points of reference, the setting,

  • emphasising that the officials are not distributing logics

  • to these poor, pitiful people who happen to end

  • up washed up onto your shores.

  • They're fulfilling an international duty

  • and a statutory duty in the country.

  • To remind south African officials

  • that our president had been a refugee.

  • That many people in government had been refugees,

  • that some of us in the court had been refugees,

  • that we were received in Africa.

  • The countries that received us were bombed, were attacked,

  • were sabotaged, they paid a very heavy price

  • so that we could get our democracy.

  • It was also a part of the obligation that we owed,

  • not necessarily to pay back in monetary terms the countries

  • that have suffered on our behalf but to pay back to humanity.

  • And most of the refugees, as it happened,

  • came from African countries.

  • Some have given us support, others that hadn't.

  • And they were set to strike a warning against xenophobia.

  • It's so easy for officials, consciously and unconsciously,

  • to see these refugees

  • as foreigners coming to take our jobs.

  • We went into other countries.

  • We worked.

  • We learned.

  • We contributed.

  • We fed and were fed in the countries that we went to

  • and we have to develop a similar kind of mentality.

  • And going through researching to African traditional culture,

  • I just knew there was something in traditional African society

  • that is very supportive of recognising the dignity

  • of people who find themselves in displace.

  • And there's a saying that the foot does not have a nose.

  • Now you say that in an African language to South Africa,

  • they know straight away what that means.

  • I had to have it explained to me.

  • The nose is where you end up.

  • You never know where you might end up.

  • It's a little stronger than saying there

  • but for the grace of God go I.

  • It's a sense of international respect for people

  • who find themselves in displace without a home, without a place,

  • in a society in another country.

  • And for me it was important to quote that in this judgment

  • to indicate this is not some kind of externally imposed set

  • of values that has nothing to do with South African reality.

  • It corresponds to the intense humanism that really is

  • at the foundation of our bill of rights in South Africa.

  • And so you will see set today why it's a separate judgment.

  • The mode of telling the story to me is often even more important

  • than the actual outcome.

  • The outcome can be a technical outcome.

  • The mode of telling the story,

  • and I end my book Strange Alchemy of Life and Law,

  • with a statement that I feel is valid,

  • that we judges are amongst the great storytellers

  • of the 21st century.

  • We tell our stories in a particular way,

  • a particular language but we tell them in our own voice,

  • that we judges are part of the reality that we are judging,

  • a strange part of the reality because we immerse

  • and detach ourselves at the same time,

  • which imposes immense strain on your writing style,

  • on your presentation, on the extent

  • to which you tell your story.

  • But nevertheless we do tell these stories

  • and these stories are important,

  • not just for the actual litigants involved

  • in the particular case, not just in terms of the actual outcome.

  • But it's part of the narratives of public life,

  • of the crucial central values of the society in which we live.

  • Thank you, Malcolm, for inviting me to give this lecture.

  • I've been, I think the word is defunct.

  • As a judge for 10 days it's very hard to make the adjustment.

  • I feel a bit like a volcano

  • that had all this lava and suddenly extinct.

  • It makes the landing a little softer

  • and I couldn't have had a more inviting context in which

  • to reflect on my life as a judge and my life as a refugee.

  • Thank you.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Albie, that's marvellous, an outstanding address.

  • Albie has very kindly agreed to take some questions

  • in the last few minutes.

  • And maybe in about quarter of an hour we'll adjourn

  • to the Jeremy Bentham room next door where not only refreshments

  • but there are also copies of The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law.

  • But please, let me invite any comments

  • or questions from the floor.

  • The judge as storyteller is one of the most powerful metaphors

  • that I should take away from this evening.

  • [ Silence ]

  • It's unusual, Albie, when you have lawyers in the audience

  • to have prolonged silences.

  • [laughter] Yes, there's a hand over there, sir?

  • >> Because there's a detention without trial.

  • For us it started off with 90 days and then

  • to be detained for another 90 days.

  • And then became 180 days and then it became indefinite.

  • I think they really tried tested ways

  • of intelligent interrogation, good penetration of the buddies

  • that are trying to do you ill, a good general intelligence,

  • in the long run, and even in the medium run,

  • provide better results than relying

  • on some strange kind of techniques.

  • And one of the problems with detention without trial is

  • that it becomes a soft option.

  • So much will depend upon the isolation of people

  • and special forms

  • of interrogation that leads to abuses.

  • And you're never in a gap between your souls,

  • your culture, your civilisation, your values

  • and those are the people who are trying to defeat you.

  • And if it ends up that you're simply a bigger gang

  • and more powerful and more successful physically

  • in what you're doing, what's it all about?

  • What's it all about?

  • I mean this is a crisis now that United States

  • of America is having to resolve and it's not an easy one

  • but they landed with Guantanamo Bay

  • that resolved nothing, it helped nothing.

  • It disgraced the country.

  • It disgraced the law.

  • The Supreme Court came out with some outstanding majority

  • decisions on that.

  • To my mind that's just not the way to go.

  • I'm not commenting at all on particular laws of this country.

  • I think it would be inappropriate

  • for me to comment on that.

  • I'm speaking in terms of broad general principle.

  • Clearly there are forms of detention and degrees of control

  • and degrees of accountability that do make a difference

  • but my general approach, based on South African experience,

  • and our constitution expressly says no detention without trial.

  • And if anybody says Albie, were you the one who ensured

  • that that very phrase got

  • into the first draft of the constitution?

  • I won't deny it.

  • >> Please, I'm sorry, it's very difficult for me to see up here.

  • I think there's a hand up in back, two hands.

  • >> How does somebody like you who suffered so terribly

  • at the hands of what seems to be an un-remorseful bastard,

  • how do you overcome the tyranny that that person can

  • so easily hold over his victim?

  • Because I think that might be a message to people

  • in South Africa today who're still battling

  • to overcome the effects of apartheid

  • and racial discrimination and also people who have to battle

  • with the effects of what America has done to them?

  • >> When I was lying in bed, I used to drive the nurses mad.

  • I was a newspaper junkie.

  • And I would read five newspapers a day.

  • And because I couldn't fold them, I would throw the pages

  • down on the floor and they would come into this nice,

  • tidy neat little private ward and have to pick

  • up all the papers, everyday.

  • And one day I get a letter from somebody who'd been in exile

  • with me in Mozambique, we call him Bobby.

  • We all had sort of traveling names then, as they were called.

  • And he said don't worry comrade, Albie, we will avenge you.

  • And I thought what does he mean?

  • Are we going to chop off the hands of arms

  • of people responsible for the bombs?

  • We gonna blind them in one eye?

  • How's that gonna help me?

  • How's that gonna help the country?

  • What does he mean by avenge?

  • And the phrase came to me afterwards when I heard that one

  • of the persons in Mozambique allegedly responsible

  • for putting a bomb in my car had been captured and I said

  • to myself, you know, he's put on trial

  • and the evidence is insufficient and he's acquitted.

  • I said that could be myself [inaudible].

  • It's more important to live in a country that has the rule of law

  • than for one rascal to be locked up and that should be a triumph.

  • And I said if we get democracy in our country,

  • if we get the votes for everybody, I said roses

  • and lilies will grow out of my arm.

  • Now that was strengthening for me.

  • It gave meaning to the why I'd lost an arm.

  • It gave meaning to the months in prison.

  • It validated everything, to achieve something.

  • Otherwise it's just meaningless.

  • If it's just random, me doing it to them,

  • what kind of a world are we living in?

  • And it so happens that I've been a judge for a couple of years,

  • the phone rings and the reception says there's a man

  • called Henry who wants to see you.

  • He says he has an appointment.

  • I said send him through to the security cage.

  • And I go to the security cage.

  • I open it, and I'm quite interested to meet him

  • because he'd found me to say he's going

  • to the truth commission.

  • He had organised the bomb in my car.

  • Was I willing to meet him before he went?

  • And I look at him and he looks at me.

  • So this is the man who tried to kill me and he's looking at me,

  • so this is the man I tried to kill.

  • We hadn't fought.

  • We didn't hate each other.

  • It wasn't over money or love or position.

  • He was on that side.

  • I was on this side.

  • And now we're meeting as human beings trying

  • to establish some kind of human contact.

  • And I remember he strode down towards my chambers

  • like a soldier and I tried to slow him

  • down with my best judge's ambulation.

  • And he chattered and chattered and chattered.

  • And he looked around my chambers with a sense of envy

  • and almost annoyance that he had now been dismissed from the Army

  • and here was I a judge with beautiful pictures

  • up on the wall and pot plants and lots

  • of books and like unfair.

  • He wanted me almost to share in his sense of unfairness.

  • It was strange.

  • And eventually after he told me about having organised the bomb

  • in my car and then he fought with the commander

  • and the mission was delayed and bomb went off a month later

  • and he realised it was me and that he'd been responsible

  • and so on and so forth.

  • I said Henry, I have to get on with my work.

  • And he stood up and I said normally I would shake the hand

  • of someone when I say goodbye.

  • I can't shake your hand.

  • But go to the truth commission.

  • Tell them what you know.

  • Do something for South Africa.

  • Maybe we'll meet one day.

  • And I remember when he went back

  • to the security gate he was shuffling along,

  • like Napoleons Army after Moscow.

  • He wasn't this proud soldier anymore.

  • And I forgot about him.

  • And about a year later I'm at a party, end of the year party,

  • and the music was playing loud.

  • I'm very tired.

  • I'm there with a friend.

  • We judges work very, very, very, very hard.

  • I'm sure it's the same here and certainly in South Africa.

  • And I hear a voice saying Albie, Albie.

  • My God, it's Henry.

  • He was at that party.

  • It turned out these were TV people

  • who were doing a documentary about him, about the soldier

  • who went to the truth commission.

  • And he's beaming.

  • He's excited to see me.

  • He's calling me Albie, by my first name and pulling aside

  • and I say Henry, what happened?

  • And he said I went to the truth commission and I spoke to Bobby

  • and Sue, that same Bobby who had sent me that note,

  • and he's using his first name too.

  • And he said I told him everything I knew

  • and you said that one day.

  • And I said Henry, I've only got your face to tell me

  • that what you're saying is the truth.

  • I put out my hand and I shook his hand.

  • He went away elated.

  • I almost fainted.

  • I heard afterwards that in fact he stayed on a little while

  • at the party, he went home and he cried for two weeks.

  • I was very moved by that because we are humanising our souls.

  • And I felt a little bit liberated by that encounter.

  • Sending him to jail would have done nothing for me.

  • I might say that I did vote as a legal for the first time.

  • I looked at my arm, I didn't see any roses or lilies.

  • But it's been an amazing and marvellous life and to be

  • in a court that's defending these values

  • and to have a constitution that embodies so much

  • that we were fighting for, that's brilliant.

  • And that's affirmative.

  • And that gives you dignity.

  • It doesn't solve the problems of our country.

  • We still have massive inequality.

  • We still have racial issues that everybody's affected by,

  • growing up in a racist society.

  • We still have crime that's totally unacceptable.

  • We will have the 2010 World Cup that will give us a huge lift

  • and it's going to be marvellous next year.

  • But the problems are heavy

  • but the constitution doesn't solve the problems,

  • it doesn't build the hospitals and the houses

  • and provide the homes

  • but it gives you a framework for doing it.

  • It gives you points of reference.

  • It gives you a sense of regularity, a sense of values

  • that become central to public life.

  • And it's been quite brilliant for me to be involved in that.

  • I compare that with sending a few people to jail.

  • Maybe you've got the wrong ones.

  • And you can't get the evidence and the courts have done

  • that for years, sending them to jail.

  • There's just no comparison.

  • Somebody said to me, Albie,

  • we're going to sue the [inaudible] for your arm.

  • He was an attorney.

  • And I said Michael how much is my arm worth, five,

  • 50 million, trillion, zillion?

  • Don't put it in the marketplace, don't make it into a commodity,

  • don't convert my life into something that can be measured

  • in pounds, schillings, or ransom sense,

  • to get our freedom, to get our democracy.

  • Now millions of South Africans feel that

  • and they feel the pride and the dignity of having achieved that.

  • But they also feel hurt.

  • They don't get the salary that I get.

  • They don't have the pension that I'm going to have now.

  • They don't have the comforts.

  • They can't travel around the world in the way that I do.

  • But it doesn't mean that that sense of dignity

  • and achievement isn't meaningful for anybody.

  • It something that does belong to everybody.

  • It gives meaning in our country and now that should be the basis

  • to grow and extend so that the actual comforts of living

  • and the real choices that you have correspond

  • to the promise of the constitution.

  • >> There was, I think, another hand up there earlier.

  • I'm sorry, I can't see it.

  • >> Can you hear me, sir?

  • >> Yes.

  • >> I'm sorry.

  • I hope I'm not taking somebody else's turn.

  • You spoke about refugees and you yourself said

  • that you were a refugee twice.

  • We're all aware South Africa and other successful nations

  • in the world are faced with a huge refugee problem.

  • There is economic migration, most of them are refugees.

  • That places a huge burden on the nations themselves.

  • Countries like South Africa should be fending

  • for their local [inaudible] and people coming in from abroad.

  • And that's also a cry, having to team up with Gaddafi and Libya

  • and trying to stop refugees coming in,

  • do you think the international rules

  • of refugee monitoring should be altered in order to cater

  • for this new demand of refugees and in order to cater

  • for this new sentiments within the local countries,

  • locals of the countries and if not then what should be done

  • to avoid this huge migration that's happening?

  • >> Refugee law at the moment makes a very clear distinction

  • between refugees fleeing forms of persecution

  • on specified grounds who face danger, death, torture,

  • annihilation in their home countries and economic migrants.

  • The very least we can do is to honour the refugee conventions

  • as far as they go and not to deny refugees their entitlements

  • in terms of international role and domestic role

  • where it applies, simply because there are

  • so many other people knocking at the door.

  • And there are strong arguments for

  • and against having immigration controls and I don't want

  • to get involved in those arguments now.

  • I just want to at this stage of this occasion and this lecture

  • to focus on the rights of refugees, focus on that.

  • My own personal view is I would like to see borders far less,

  • far more porous than they are now, free movement

  • of people throughout the world, progressively to move towards

  • that but I wouldn't like that to become a prefix or an excuse

  • for denying refugees the rights that they have at the moment.

  • There's always need for review and to look at lots of migrants.

  • There're migrants all over the world.

  • Migrants are often very, very vulnerable.

  • And migrants often subject

  • to very special forms of exploitation.

  • The International Labor Organisation recognises

  • that in all sorts of ways.

  • But sometimes it is convenient, at the moment it is necessary

  • to distinguish between the different categories.

  • The people who came as refugees to south Africa are quoted

  • in the judgment some actual cases.

  • There was somebody who was, he'd lost his father.

  • His uncle had been massacred.

  • He was the only survivor in a particular family.

  • He was a school teacher.

  • There were other cases like that.

  • We had somebody, in fact was to look afterwards,

  • I wasn't doing it for this purpose,

  • when I parked my motor car outside near my house

  • and a whole lot of steps in a place called Clifton,

  • a very marvellous set up near the beach in Cape Town.

  • He would carry, this is what I called the problems of the rich,

  • I would buy so much

  • at the supermarket I couldn't carry it all down just

  • with my one hand so I needed help.

  • And his name was Olivia.

  • [phonetic] He was from the Congo.

  • And he couldn't have been kinder and he didn't stand

  • around waiting for a tip and he was a school teacher.

  • In the end my wife said we must send him back to the Congo,

  • allow him to go back to the Congo to his family.

  • The Congo has stabilised now.

  • And she said we can use frequent flyer points.

  • She went to the airport.

  • She found that the taxes were as costly as the frequent flyer

  • so she just wrote out a check and we sent him back.

  • And that was wonderful for him.

  • It was terrible for us because now I had

  • to carry my own stuff down.

  • [laughter] But the cases are so poignant.

  • The minute you humanise,

  • you look at an individual, not at the mass.

  • Not at the mass of fleeing people put up I tents

  • but individual human beings with rights and entitlements,

  • you just find completely different answers.

  • >> This is the final question down here.

  • >> As you probably know, Albie,

  • I represent the counsel assisting refugee academics,

  • CARA.

  • We were very honoured to give you two grants.

  • We are delighted that you presented the book

  • and that you are speaking in London.

  • Thank you very much for that.

  • I wondered if you had a message

  • for the modern day refugee academic?

  • Because there are probably people in this audience

  • and there's certainly hundreds in the academic community

  • in the U.K. who have suffered imprisonment, torture

  • and persecution and who're now striving

  • to make their life again in very difficult circumstances

  • and they're frankly unable to return to their own country.

  • And it's a very lonely position to be in, as you've experienced.

  • And I think they would welcome from you as,

  • and what you've achieved, some acknowledgement

  • about what can be done through organisations like CARA

  • but in the way that the academic community can rally

  • around these individuals.

  • Thank you.

  • >> Possibly the most important thing is to never give

  • up on the possibility of returning to your country

  • and taking back with you, not just pounds, learning ideas.

  • The U.K. is a fantastic country for encounters.

  • People from all over the world, other refugees,

  • sometimes you meet them, I was stateless for seven years

  • and I'd be sitting in a rather drab office.

  • At least we didn't have to stand.

  • It was the first time I've cubed sitting on a bench,

  • which I appreciated very much.

  • And you get talking to people and you learn about politics,

  • you learn about life, you learn about government,

  • you learn about your own.

  • I studied law while I was in the UK and I find I'm bringing

  • out stuff on family law that was very progressive

  • in early 1970's.

  • It was a revolution in family law in the United Kingdom.

  • And it just brings to mind straight away.

  • Then I went to Mozambique.

  • I was already in that culture.

  • And Afro centred versus Euro centred and their way,

  • people centred, all the different things coming in.

  • So I was able to take so much back.

  • And I think that's something very, very valuable.

  • It's not just learning the English language and how to get

  • by but things that you can take home with you one day.

  • Learning the importance of the value of diversity,

  • living in an open society.

  • I think that's also a very, very rich thing to take back

  • from different countries, particularly countries

  • that have been so authoritarian, that are so lacking in respect

  • for human dignity that you've been driven out,

  • to give you hope that you can do

  • that without being an Englishman living in this country

  • or that country, being a national of that country

  • but because in you live in your heart you believe

  • in these things, you exert as different things.

  • It might be just learning about science,

  • learning about teaching, learning about a whole range

  • of different things, seeing movies, going to the theatre,

  • music, contributing, giving,

  • feeling like a rich human being wherever you go.

  • I think it is particularly fruitful

  • to have a special organisation that responds to academics.

  • Partly because academics are often the subject

  • of special persecution because they deal in ideals and partly

  • because they can take back

  • with them something you don't put in your suitcase.

  • It's something you take back in your head and in your heart

  • as very, very special and that can become the great educators

  • in the countries that they go.

  • I've expressed my thanks to CARA a number of times.

  • I'm very happy to do it again.

  • I hope I'm not going to be a refugee again.

  • I think, what did Oscar Wilde say?

  • Once is something another, twice is something else.

  • Three times would be expertly impertinent.

  • [laughter]

  • >> In a moment I'm going

  • to invite Michael Worton who's our vice-Provost

  • for Academics International to propose a special thanks

  • but before I do I think just to share with a number

  • of people I know in the audience who, like me, have known Albie

  • for several years, this sense of nostalgia

  • for somebody whose spirit remains undiminished

  • and whose values remain untarnished

  • after so long a period.

  • And also there aren't roses or lilies growing

  • out of the shattered arm but there is new life.

  • Albie with his wife Vanessa, he's recently become a father

  • to three year old, Oliver,

  • who has decided not to join us tonight.

  • And Albie we congratulate you both and we marvel in the values

  • that that child will inherit.

  • Michael Worton

  • >> It's almost impossible, given the diversity of the audience,

  • to respond, if you like, in a coherent way

  • to what was I think one of the richest lectures

  • that we've heard in a very long time.

  • But I was reflecting as you were talking about lying

  • on the soft grass looking up at the kites when you were here,

  • when you were on one of your refugee trips outside

  • of South Africa, about how we have a culture

  • which is moving away from lying in the soft grass looking

  • at the kites and thinking of what life can be.

  • And we've turned increasingly to reality shows

  • where everyone is on a journey.

  • We're on a journey, if you like, learning how to do a tango

  • or how to learn a second song.

  • And if you like the devaluing of such an important word

  • as Jeremy, I think, is something that you have turned around.

  • Today there've been so many metaphors, so many examples

  • of life that you have transformed.

  • The journey that we shared with you, in I think a very real way,

  • each of us has been moved by it, each of us has learned

  • of our own potential and strength that might match yours.

  • We may never realise it but at least we know it is possible.

  • I think there was also the sense

  • of the astonishing contradictions in a life

  • which can go from dancing, waltzing, singing Noel Coward

  • in solitary confinement and then moving on almost inextricably

  • to what you describe as being absolute loss of dignity,

  • that compared with how you described your feelings

  • after you had been bombed and saying that I was joyous.

  • I have only lost an arm.

  • These are things which we hope most of us will not go through

  • but I think it's an enormous lesson to us

  • to understand how life is always, if you like,

  • capable of being transcended.

  • If there are commitments to values, if there are commitments

  • to human dignity and where all

  • of us I think automatically have failed,

  • yes on a desert island we too would have taken human dignity

  • if we'd had the whit to think of it.

  • I'm not sure we'd all have thought

  • of taking along proportionality as well.

  • [laughter] But I think when you were talking about your work

  • as a judge, remind us I think of something quite astonishing,

  • how does one decide between right and right?

  • But mostly I think it's all about deciding

  • between right and wrong.

  • Issues around proportionality became very real to all of us,

  • something that we do need to meditate,

  • we do need to take back with us.

  • But if there's one thing that I will take away

  • from this it's the way you describe judges.

  • Malcolm said quite rightly there's this wonderful new

  • notion of judges.

  • I just read a judgment handed down by the court of appeal

  • and I wouldn't say that was the greatest story I'd ever read.

  • [laughter] And the one or two times I had

  • to struggle slightly with the syntax.

  • But I love the notions of judges as story tellers.

  • But I also find myself going back to something you said

  • when you were describing your shattered body.

  • When you expressed your gratitude to the doctors

  • from everything that they had done but to the people

  • who had helped the rebirth were the physiotherapists.

  • And in many ways when you were talking later about the work

  • of the constitutional court in south Africa and so on,

  • I thought yes, it is wonderful that judges can be storytellers

  • but I think now I'll increasingly seek at least

  • to think of them as the great physiotherapists of nations.

  • Thank you very much indeed, Albie.

  • Thank you.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Ladies and gentlemen, please would you join Albie, Michael

  • and myself for a drinks reception which is

  • in the Jeremy Bentham room which is right through the back doors

  • and straight through there.

  • Thank you all very much.

  • [silence]

[ Silence ]

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阿爾比-薩克斯法官講座(UCL)。 (Justice Albie Sachs lecture (UCL))

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    Melissa Hsu 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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