I ask for Judge Albie Sachs at the reception desk of the office park premises where South Africa’s new Constitutional Court is temporarily housed, expecting to be taken through to the judge’s chambers by a typical New South African flunky. Within minutes, however, the judge himself is loping into the foyer.
He frowns, a little puzzled, because he doesn’t immediately see me — I have moved away from the reception desk, studying various pieces of art hanging on the walls. Besides, the judge’s eyesight is not all that hot since that incident when a bomb went off under his car in Maputo, back in 1988.
When we do make contact, he wastes no time in introducing me to the paintings, contributions from a flood of artists who have responded to his invitation to submit works that will ultimately grace the walls of the new court building, now being constructed on the site of the old Johannesburg prison (more commonly known as The Fort) on the edge of Hillbrow.
The judge is wearing a flamboyantly patterned shirt, worn loosely outside the trousers, Madiba-style, and a pair of battered black trainers. The right sleeve of the shirt hangs empty at his side, further testimony to the effects of that near-fatal bomb blast.
He takes me through a series of corridors, explaining the symbolism of the paintings and tapestries, and the diverse origins of the artists who created them.
His vision is to give the Constitutional Court a warm, friendly feel, away from the intimidating atmosphere of a traditional court building. “We want a building that doesn’t just represent authority and power — a court that is there to serve the needs of the people.”
The tour has its comic moments. While Albie is talking, newly appointed Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson appears fleetingly at an open door at the end of the corridor and disappears again, a sheaf of papers in his hand. A moment later, he reappears, moving at speed in the opposite direction, but not so fast that he doesn’t have time to stare curiously in our direction, trying to see what it is that Albie is going on about now, and for who’s benefit. And then he is gone.
Round another corner, Judge Zak Yacoob is being guided down the corridor by a young lady, his sunken eye sockets shaded beneath the brim of a tweed cap. I will not swear that he is fleeing from yet another Albie lecture on art, but for a blind man he is moving pretty fast. Then he, too, is gone.
And then there is only us, the artwork, and the soft, persistent voice of Judge Albie Sachs.
By his own admission, Judge Sachs is a bit of a maverick figure among his fellow judges. He abhors formality, in dress as much as anything else (although he does consent to appear in a judge’s gown during court hearings). Hence the loose shirt, the determinedly relaxed official portrait — and the hundreds of bright works of art that almost litter the place.
The idea of the new Constitutional Court as a showcase for almost every style of artwork South Africa has to offer is undoubtedly his. But the art is not merely to decorate the vast new complex that will rise out of the grim remains of the old Fort. Art is integral to the whole concept of the new Constitutional Court building–a concept that Judge Sachs himself was instrumental in devising.
This may seem a meddlesome role for a judge of the highest court in the land to take upon himself. Why doesn’t he just keep his nose in his legal books, like other judges do, and let the architects get on with it?
The answer is that this is all part of the Albie Sachs style. It is a style that has put a lot of noses out of joint over the years, and continues to do so.
During the intense grilling he was subjected to during the process of his election to the Constitutional Court, he had to answer a lot of tough questions about his unorthodox history. Why, for example, did he think he could be a truly impartial judge when he had such a long history of almost blind loyalty to the policies of the African National Congress — including an apparent failure to speak out against human rights abuses in Umkhonto weSizwe camps?
Judge Sachs had to painstakingly correct this misapprehension of his position, and try to explain the inevitable limitations to what an individual could do or say within a liberation movement in a war situation.
What he did not add was that he had attracted much flack for his unorthodox views from the liberation movement itself at various times, particularly when he prepared a discussion document about the future role of culture in a liberated South Africa, a document that was hotly debated in Lusaka in 1989.
“Are we ready for freedom,” Judge Sachs had written, “or do we prefer to be angry victims?”
“The first proposition I make,” he continued, “is that we should ban ourselves from saying that culture is a weapon of struggle ? Our artists are not pushed to improve the quality of their work, it is enough that it be politically correct. The more fists and spears and guns, the better.”
Art, he argued, is a vehicle for exploring all the subtle facets of human existence, including its contradictions and hidden tensions.
This was regarded as reactionary and heretical within certain ANC quarters at the time. But Judge Sachs stuck to his vision.
And in a sense, the triumph of that vision is revealed in the warmth and openness that the new court will convey, emphasised by the presence of so many artistic explorations –none of which will be allowed to dwell on “fists and spears and guns” as their main motif.
In Judge Sachs’s vision, the new court building will represent “the soft, South African answer that proved to be more powerful than the wrath; that turned away wrath.”
It’s a brave, almost quixotic vision. But this time, it looks like it just might be allowed to work.
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