Fischer: 'It's never too late'

2003-10-16 22:39

Johannesburg - Almost a decade after apartheid's end, the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday posthumously reinstated a disbarred white lawyer who defended Nelson Mandela and other black leaders.

Bram Fischer, a Communist leader and former chairman of the Bar Council, was struck off the roll in 1965 for conduct "unbefitting a member of the bar."

The action came after he was charged with breaking a then ban on communist activities and jumped bail. He was re-arrested a year later and sentenced to life in prison.

Shortly before he died of cancer in 1975, authorities declared the home of his brother, Paul, a prison so he could be transferred there without officially being released.

One of Fischer's two daughters, 60-year-old Ilse Wilson, was in court Thursday to witness the proceedings at which her father was formally readmitted as a legal practitioner by a full bench of three judges.

The chair of the Johannesburg Bar Council, Hilton Epstein, "apologised profusely" for Fischer's exclusion from the legal community, Wilson said. He called the disbarment of Fischer a "great injustice."

"It takes big people to say sorry," Wilson said. "The proceedings were very moving indeed. I hadn't expected that."

Wilson and her sister, Ruth Rice, had to wait for an act of parliament allowing posthumous reinstatements of lawyers who fought against apartheid before they could submit an application on behalf of their father. Previously, lawyers still had to be alive for this to be done.

The law, popularly known as the "Bram Fischer Act", was passed November 6.

Fischer led the defence of Mandela and seven others sentenced at the highly publicized 1964 "Rivonia trial" to life in prison for plotting anti-government sabotage.

Ahmed Kathrada, who was sentenced with Mandela and spent 25 years in prison, welcomed the reinstatement of the man he described as "my comrade, my leader, my lawyer,"

"It is an acknowledgment of what he had fought for, of what he had sacrificed - his life," he said. "It's never too late to acknowledge him."

- AP