Sachs, Albi

Albert Saks was born on January 30, 1935 in Johannesburg into a Lithuanian family of Jewish descent. He attended the South African Private School in Cape Town. As a second-year student at the Department of Law, University of Cape Town , where he received his bachelor's degree. Sachs participated in a campaign of civil disobedience. ^[2] .

Sax began his career as a lawyer at the age of 21 at the Cape Town Law Office , defending racial and security laws during apartheid in South Africa. After being arrested and held in solitary confinement for more than five months for participating in the freedom movement, Albi Sachs went to exile in London, where he received a PhD from the University of Sussex. In England, he spent 11 years teaching law, the next 11 years were in Mozambique, where he also served as a law teacher and legal researcher. In 1988, in Mozambique, as a result of a car explosion, Sachs lost his arm and lost his sight in one eye. Following the assassination attempt, Saks devoted himself to developing a new democratic Constitution for South Africa. He returned to South Africa and was a member of the Constitutional Committee and National Administration of the African National Congress before seeking asylum in the United States.

Sachs was appointed a member of the Constitutional Court of South Africa Nelson Mandela in 1994 ^[3] . His appointment was ambiguous, mainly due to an interview with the Judicial Service Commission, where he was asked about his involvement in a report that downplayed the indefinite detention and solitary confinement of the commander of Umkonto ve siswe African National Congress , Tami Zulu. A member of the commission stated that Sachs' responses were “terrifying,” and criticized him for “selling his soul” by signing this report ^[4] . One well-known lawyer said that if Sax’s interview were more widely available, he would never have been able to become a member of the Constitutional Court. Saks himself believes that criticism of him is unfair, given his central role in ending torture in the ANC camps ^[6] . Many of Sax's court decisions are related to anti-discrimination legislation. He was the main author of the majority decision in the Prinsoo v. Van der Linde case, which established the connection between equality before the law and dignity ^[7] . He was the author of a majority decision in the Minister of the Interior v. Fourier case, in which the Court declared the charter of South Africa, defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, unconstitutional. Judge O'Regan harshly criticized Sachs for referring to the regulation of same-sex marriage with Parliament, and not for immediate assistance. Both judges wrote a joint disagreement in 2002 alleging that criminalizing sex services unjustly discriminates against the foundations of gender and is therefore considered unconstitutional ^[9] .

Sachs resigned in October 2009 along with Pius Lang, Yvonne Mokgoro, and Kate O'Regan.

In 1991, Sachs received the Alan Peyton Prize for his book The Soft Vengeance of the Freedom Fighter, which talks about his reaction to the bombing of a car in 1988 ^[10] . He also authored the books Justice in South Africa (1974), The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs (1966), Sexism and the Law (1979), The Free Diary of Albie Sachs (2004). The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law (2009) also won the Alan Payton Literary Prize, making Sachs the second person to receive this award twice. In 2017, the book We the People: Insights of an Activist Judge was published. The book The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs received both a theatrical adaptation for the Royal Shakespeare Company by David Edgar and a television adaptation (by BBC in the second half of the 1970s).

Sachs received 14 honorary degrees in four countries. In 2009, he was awarded a prize for his contribution to reconciliation, as well as a prize from the Academy of Achievements. On June 21, 2014, he won the Tang Award for his contribution to global advocacy and justice. ^[11] In 2015, he was appointed to the Ford of Art of Change project. Sachs participated in the selection of the collection for Constitution Hill, the location of the Constitutional Court. Sachs was also a member of the judiciary of Kenya. He is currently a member of the AD White Professor-at-Large program at Cornell University .

In 1966, Sachs married Stephanie Kemp, a member of the African Resistance Movement, the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party , in London ^[12] . They have two children: Alan (artist) and Michael (development economist). In 1980, they divorced and Stephanie remained in London until 1990, working as a pediatric physiotherapist. In 2006, he again married the urban space architect Vanessa September in the Constitutional Court. They have a son, Oliver Lucutandu Septptember Saks.

• Judge Albert Louis "Albie" Sachs. South African History Online
• Biography at the Constitutional Court of South Africa website
• On idealism, passion and reason in South Africa Albie Sachs Speaks on BBC The Forum
• Albie Sachs speaks on "Nelson Mandela: A Leader and a Friend"
• Albie Sachs: 'The fact that South Africa is a country at all is one of the greatest stories of our time' (16 May 2010)