Albie Sachs to speak at Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Serving the Next Generation - The Commonwealth in the 21st Century: A Strange Alchemy of Life and Law

Speaker: Justice Albie Sachs

THIS EVENT IS PART OF THE LECTURE SERIES TO MARK THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF BOTH THE INSTITUTE AND THE MODERN COMMONWEALTH.

Albie Sachs has been a Justice of South Africa’s Constitutional Court since 1994. A lawyer and anti-apartheid activist, Sachs is also the author of several books on various subjects including human rights, culture, gender and the environment. His books include ‘The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs’ covering his time in solitary confinement in apartheid South Africa; and his struggle after losing his right arm in a car bomb in Maputo recounted in ‘The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter’. In his most recent book ‘Free Diary of Albie Sachs’ (Random House South Africa 2004) Sachs says the challenge was to write about happiness instead of pain and suffering. In recent years he has been passionate about the architecture and décor of the ‘Peoples Palace’- the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

Monday 1 March

12:30 - 14:00
Please note this lecture will begin promptly at 12.30pm.

Venue: The Beveridge Hall (Senate House, Ground Floor)

Contact: troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk

The Library is particularly pleased to welcome Albie Sachs back to the Institute in a visit which continues his long standing relationship with the Institute.

We are also pleased to use this opportunity to promote our holdings of the microfilm of the papers of Dr Albert Louis ('Albie') Sachs concerning legal cases and political trials of approximately 100 individuals, in South Africa. Charges include murder, sabotage, rape, contravention of Emergency Regulations, membership of the Pan Africanist Congress, incitement, distribution of banned literature, banning orders, arson, corruption, race classification and entering native locations. This collection can be consulted, on request, in the Special Collections Reading Room, 4th Floor, South Block, Senate House Library.