Designing a code of conduct for a liberation struggle in exile was the most significant work of his career, Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs said in Johannesburg on Thursday.
It was a task he carried out at the behest of former African National Congress (ANC) president Oliver Tambo after he discovered that suspected agents of the apartheid regime were being tortured in ANC camps.
”To my mind that was the beginning of the constitutionality at the heart, at the core of the freedom struggle,” Sachs said in delivering the second annual Abdullah Omar Memorial Lecture.
Although rights for everyone had been spoken of, this was the first step in converting the notion into something which could be achieved.
He described as a ”huge, marvellous” intellectual challenge the need to distinguish between the delinquent and those ”sent with poison or bombs to kill someone”.
Three tiers of tribunal were created, with defence and forms of appeal and ”immediately these had an impact on the treatment of captives”, Sachs said.
Yet, Tambo did not impose the code of conduct on the ANC, but insisted it be discussed by the ANC. ”That was Tambo’s way,” said Sachs.
It was in these talks that members of Umkhonto we Sizwe — the ANC’s armed wing — ”one by one” insisted that the life they were fighting for be respected and that the organisation have a core morality.
Sachs said there was still criticism today of ”exile mentality” — or of people giving and waiting for instructions.
However, there was exile — and then there was exile under Tambo, which consisted of debate and discussion, he said.
Until the question of election of the ANC National Executive Committee cropped up, Tambo had personally crafted a ”very balanced leadership”.
When it became clear that people wanted an election, Tambo agreed ”absolutely”, but when it came time for the election, delegates became ”frightened”.
Not knowing who to elect, they asked Tambo whom he recommended. Although he told them that was not how it worked, Tambo eventually agreed to give them a list of 35 names from which to choose 20.
Sachs was addressing, among others, Chief Justice Pius Langa, who delivered the inaugural lecture last year, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe, Omar’s wife Farieda and their family, academics and diplomats.
The Omar lecture series seeks to highlight the challenges facing democracy, human rights and safety in South Africa and the world, and is hosted by the University of South Africa’s (Unisa) Institute for Social and Health Sciences.
It upholds the legacy of Dullah Omar, a champion of freedom and equality, who served South Africa as Minister of both Justice and Constitutional Development and Transport.
Sachs stressed that his lecture was not the conclusive story of the country’s struggle for democracy, but ”it happens to be mine”.
”I believe it has relevance for the country,” he said.
He credited Tambo, a deeply religious person, with forever changing his ideas on diversity while in the ranks of the country’s freedom fighters. – Sapa