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Legalbrief / LSSA Legal Newsmaker of 2008
Legalbrief and the Law Society of South Africa are proud to be launching a new award - The Legal Newsmaker of the Year. The holder of the annual title will be announced in mid 2009.
The rationale is to provide a vehicle by which outstanding members of the legal profession can be recognised and commended for their exceptional performance. In the popular media and indeed, broader society, legal practitioners and the legal profession are easy targets for often unfair criticism. The award will highlight the work done by legal practitioners and publicise this not only within the legal community but to a broader audience.
How it works
The accolade is not limited to attorneys, but is open to all legal practitioners and/or any person in South Africa who is making a newsworthy contribution in the field of law. The award will be made on the basis of positive legal impact, news value and media attention in both the mainstream media and specialist legal publications.
Each month, the Legalbrief management team will select the final candidate for that month's nomination. At the end of the year, the Law Society of South Africa will be presented with the final list of nominees and will make their selection for the annual winner of the Legal Newsmaker of the Year title. The award will be presented at a ceremony in 2009.
Suggest a nomination
If you know somebody who’s made a difference we’d like to hear from you. We’re looking for outstanding people in and outside the legal profession to challenge for our Legal Newsmaker of the Year award. They will be chosen from a list of monthly finalists. Do you know someone who’s deserving of nomination? Someone who’s made a difference? If so, let us know.
The name of the nominated party together with a motivation for the nomination can be e-mailed to the Legalbrief Editor.
February nomination
Immigration lawyer Gary Eisenberg, recently elected chairman of the Immigration and Nationality Committee of the International Bar Association, is February's nomination for the Legal Newsmaker of the Year award. Eisenberg, who rose to prominence in 2003, is well known for having vigorously and successfully litigated against then Minister of Home Affairs, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, for the full democratisation of immigration regulation-making. Eisenberg is rated as one of the world's leading immigration lawyers and is the only elected entrant to the global Who's Who of Immigration Lawyers representing SA. His legal career has been described as 'brilliant' by none other than one-time opponent Buthelezi, who came to respect the Cape Town-based lawyer through litigation he brought that undermined the entire system of migration control, so breaking down the inequity and injustice that was built into it and which was a crippling plague in SA's nascent democracy. In Buthelezi's words, the Eisenberg-inspired 'constitutional litigation in the field of migration control had an enormous impact on the rest of (SA's) legal system'.
The immigration law conundrum
January nomination
The gladiatorial aspect of Jacob Zuma's ongoing legal battle against the state - the matching of senior counsel Wim Trengove and Kemp J Kemp - has not only made for riveting courtroom action, but has dominated the news headlines whenever they came to grips. The legal cut-and-thrust, as erudite as it is sometimes surprising, has captivated the media and readers alike. Kemp and Trengove are both clearly committed to the rule of law, an aspect of the Zuma matter that sets a shining example for the rest of Africa, where few jurisdictions would entertain the notion of a would-be President being hung out on the clothesline of public scrutiny. For these reasons, Trengove and Kemp make up our joint January nomination for the Legal Newsmaker of the Year award.
SA's legal system will survive - Kemp
SA democracy in peril - Trengove
December nomination
Suspended by former President Thabo Mbeki and earmarked for firing by President Kgalema Motlanthe despite being cleared by the very commission set up to sink him, Vusi Pikoli, currently the subject of the 'rubber-stamp machinations' of a loaded parliamentary committee that will endorse Motlanthe's decision, is the December nomination for the Legal Newsmaker of the Year award. The suspended National Director of Prosecutions has to go, writes Legalbrief, for he is seen to be in the way of ANC plans to appoint their own man to head the NPA, an appointment that will put an end the NPA's pursuit of President-in-waiting Jacob Zuma. Pikoli, however, will not go without a fight - he has vowed to take the matter of his firing to court if Parliament, as expected, endorses Motlanthe's decision. He has already shown great courage and determination in fighting his suspension, which followed the NPA's charging of National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi with corruption, and is a shining example of prosecutorial independence - ironically, the very reason the ANC wants him out - which makes him a worthy nomination for the award.
More: "The case for the prosecution"
Vusi Pikoli: "We will not be swayed"
November nomination
Justice Richard Goldstone, former judge of the Constitutional Court and currently co-chair of International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), is the November nomination for the Legal Newsmaker of the Year award. Goldstone, who was also the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, was recently honoured as the recipient of the MacArthur Award for International Justice. ‘Goldstone has played an instrumental role in building the emerging international system of justice,’ said MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton in remarks at a conference on international justice at American University recently. ‘He gave the tribunals moral authority and legal credibility. It is, in large part, a testament to the quality of his work that the international community accepted the Rome Statute and established the International Criminal Court with confidence. His unquestioned competence and integrity won the faith of the world.’ Goldstone is only the second winner of the MacArthur award. The first recipient was Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who was recognised for his contribution to building the International Criminal Court and encouraging the development of the concept of the Responsibility to Protect.
Richard Goldstone – A life devoted to justice for all
Profile – Doing justice to SA and the world
October nomination
Hugh (Bob) Glenister, the businessman who fought for the retention of the Scorpions all the way to the Constitutional Court, is the October nomination of the Legal Newsmaker of the Year award. His efforts have been applauded as a great example of a private citizen taking the time and interest and spending what must be a vast amount of his own resources - said to be in the region of R2m - fighting for open dialogue in SA. In his own words: 'I've always had a problem with bullies'. He saw his efforts, although they ultimately failed, as an investment in SA's future. 'Out of this whole process comes a whole set of discussions. People have become involved, people have discussed it, so I think the process is well worth an investment in SA.'
Read Hugh (Bob) Glenister's response to the nomination
Read our full report
Read a profile on Hugh (Bob) Glenister
September nomination
Judge Navanatham Pillay, who has been appointed as the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights - the first African ever to reach such a position in the UN - has been chosen as the September nominee for the Legal Newsmaker of the Year award. Accepting the appointment, the former Durban attorney said she would speak out firmly for victims of rights abuses around the world - and against the abusers. 'The High Commissioner should focus fearlessly on protecting the interests of victims all over the world, and that does involve speaking up against the violators as well,' she said, adding her heart was with the abused because she, too, had been a 'victim in apartheid SA'. Pillay was previously a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. As a lawyer in SA, she defended anti-apartheid activists and championed the right of Nelson Mandela and other dissidents to legal assistance.
Read our full report
Read a profile on Judge Navanatham Pillay
August nomination
Mahendra Chetty, Regional Director of the Legal Resources Centre, Durban, is the August nomination for the Legal Newsmaker of the Year award. In accepting the award - made as a result of his outstanding work for the under-privileged, not least his success in securing a Durban High Court interdict last month preventing city officials from demolishing their makeshift homes - Chetty gave credit to his colleagues. He said the LRC's success in this case was 'due in no small part to having an excellent group of committed candidate attorneys as well as counsel who believe in the cause of our clients'. And he added: 'Most important, though, are our clients - people who have little or no material wealth, but an abundance ...of human spirit and dignity. I consider myself privileged to work with suchclients, having done so at the LRC since 1990. In some small way, it allows me to play a part in justice being done.' The ruling sent out a message that the rights of those living in informal settlements could not be trampled on. It also placed an obligation on the municipality to communicate effectively with shack dwellers about its intentions.
Read our full report
July nomination
Judge Bill Prinsloo, whose groundbreaking judgment in the High Court last month exposed the government's couldn't-care-less attitude to repeated requests by a Free State farmer for diplomatic protection against the violation of his property rights in Zimbabwe, is the July nomination for the Legal Newsmaker of the Year award. In his judgment, Prinsloo noted: 'Over all these years the respondents have done absolutely nothing to assist the applicant, despite diligent and continued requests for diplomatic protection. No explanation whatsoever has been forthcoming for this tardy and lacklustre behaviour.' He granted an order declaring that President Thabo Mbeki and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Industry and Justice had a constitutional obligation to provide diplomatic protection to Free State farmer Crawford von Abo. The judge ordered the government to take all necessary steps to have the violation of Von Abo's rights in Zimbabwe remedied and to report back to the court what steps had been taken within 60 days. According to lawyer Peter Leon, besides exposing the sham of SA's 'quiet diplomacy' in Zimbabwe the Von Abo judgment is remarkable for being the first in SA's 14-year democratic journey to order the government to provide one of its nationals with effective diplomatic protection.
Read our full report
June nomination
The Treatment Action Campaign has been selected as the June nominee for the award. In June the TAC finally won its bid to rein in the activities of vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath. The Cape High Court banned Rath and his Rath Foundation from conducting unauthorised clinical trials. Rath was also barred from publishing advertisements, touting the supposed anti-AIDS benefits of his VitaCell products until he has submitted the products to the Medicines Control Council. The TAC said the ruling was a victory for the rule of law and for science in medicine. Spokesperson Nathan Geffen said the TAC was aware of at least 12 people who had died of AIDS after going to Rath's clinics and not seeking appropriate treatment at public health clinics.
Read our full report
Read a report on the TAC
May nomination
The May nomination for the Legal Newsmaker of the Year award is Fatima Khan, Director of the Refugee Rights Project at UCT. The award, launched by Legalbrief Today in association with the Law Society of SA, recognises individuals who have made an outstanding and newsworthy contribution in the field of law. Fatima Khan proves that good law goes beyond the court room. She is dedicated to ensuring that refugees – recognised as such or not – are protected to the full extent of the law. She has been instrumental in assisting refugees during the xenophobia crisis, ensuring, among other things, that their rights are protected in the face of enforced registration by the Department of Home Affairs – aimed, it is thought, at criminalising some of the refugees and their employers. She has also tried over the years to warn the government about the sort of crisis that exploded in the country last month.
Read our full report
Read a report on the Refugee Rights Project
April nomination
The first contenders for Legalbrief Today’s Legal Newsmaker of the Year award – seven joint nominees – have been announced. The nominees for the month of April are: The SA Litigation Centre (represented by Nicole Fritz); Anglican Bishop of Natal Rubin Phillip; consultant to the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council Paddy Kearney; Malcolm Wallis (SC); Angus Stewart (SC); Max du Plessis (advocate and associate professor of law, Faculty of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal) and JP Purshotam (attorney). They share the April nomination for their efforts in stopping a shipment or arms destined for Zimbabwe from being transported through SA. They brought a High Court action when they became aware a Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, was anchored outside Durban harbour prior to unloading six containers of weapons destined for the Zimbabwe Defence Force. They succeeded in getting an interim order from presiding Judge Kate Pillay preventing the seven respondents in the case – the National Conventional Arms Control Committee; the Minister of Defence; the Secretary of Defence; the Minister of Foreign Affairs; AB Logistics; the Port Captain, Durban Harbour; and the Transnet National Ports Authority – from transporting the arms shipment beyond the precincts of the Durban harbour. In doing so, the recipients indicated the enormous potential there is within our new democracy to use imaginatively the Constitution to advance a vibrant, socially aware and responsive civil society.
Read our full report
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