|
On Tuesday, Jan. 17, the Center for the Study of Law and Culture at Columbia Law School will host a lecture by Justice Albie Sachs, South African Constitutional Court. The presentation is titled " The Legal Treatment of Socially and Morally Divisive Issues, South Africa and the U.S. Compared: Abortion, Capital Punishment, Religion & Homosexuality."
The event will begin at 12:20 p.m. in room 102, Columbia Law School, Jerome Greene Hall.
Justice Sachs is the author of the South African Constitutional Court's recent Fourie decision in which it held that same-sex couples must be permitted to marry in like manner to that afforded different-sex couples.
His career in human rights activism started at the age of 17, 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. The majority of his work involved defending people charged under racist statutes and repressive security laws. Many faced the death sentence. Sachs was raided by the security police, subjected to banning 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 11 years studying and teaching law in England, he worked for an additional 11 years in Mozambique as law professor and legal researcher. In 1988, he was the victim of a car bombing in Maputo by South African security agents, losing an arm and the sight in one 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 recovering from the bomb he devoted himself full-time to preparations for a new democratic Constitution for South Africa. In 1990, he returned home and as a member of the Constitutional Committee and the National Executive of the ANC took an active part in the negotiations which led to South Africa becoming a constitutional democracy. After the first democratic election in 1994 he was appointed by President Nelson Mandela to serve on the newly established Constitutional Court.
For more information about this event, contact Eric Bornemann at eborne@law.columbia.edu, 854-2511.
|
