Albie Sachs begins UK lecture tour in Southampton
Albie Sachs, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and one of the leading figures in the creation of the new South Africa, will be addressing fundamental issues of justice and politics in a series of lectures to be given in the UK this month.
Judge Sachs is visiting the UK on a lecture tour funded by the British Academy, and his visit is hosted by the University of Southampton, where he taught in the Law Faculty in the 1970s, during his period of exile in England.
The first lecture of his tour will be given at the University of Southampton on Wednesday 12 February, with the title: 'Nelson Mandela and the Constitutional Control of Public Power'. He will then be lecturing at Edinburgh University, Queen's University Belfast, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics.
Notes for editors
- Dates for Judge Sachs's lectures are:
Wednesday 12 February, University of Southampton: Nelson Mandela and Constitutional Control of Public Power (this lecture will be held at 5.30 pm in the Turner Sims Concert Hall)
Monday 17 February, University of Edinburgh: The Evolution of Devolution: The Court Steps In
Wednesday 19 February, Queen's University Belfast: South Africa's Truth Commission
Tuesday 25 February, University of Cambridge: Tock-Tick: The Working of a Judicial Mind, with Reference to Capital Punishment
Thursday 27 February, London School of Economics: Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights. - Judge Albie Sachs is one of the leading figures in the emergence of South Africa's political and judicial system. In the 1960s he was twice detained without trial by the country's security police, before going into exile in England in 1966. In 1988 he was nearly killed by a car bomb. 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. He took an active part in the negotiations for a new Constitution as a member of the Constitutional Committee of the ANC and of the National Executive of that organization. He is currently a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
- The University of Southampton is a leading UK teaching and research institution with a global reputation for leading-edge research and scholarship. The University, which celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 2002, has 20,000 students and over 4,500 staff and plays an important role in the City of Southampton. Its annual turnover is in the region of £235 million.