The Mandela Brief: Sydney Kentridge and the Trials of Apartheid

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De Vos, who had produced this political cornucopia, was powerless to halt the use now being made of it. By the time Kentridge had got Murray to accept that one was unlikely to find a Marxist-Leninist invoking Christian principles, his credibility as a witness, Grant considers, had been destroyed. I don’t think that is quite right. True, Murray had fallen into a series of elephant traps by identifying passages which turned out to be the work of Milton, Pitt, Voltaire and Lincoln, and in one instance of Murray himself, as communistic. But by treating him as an intellectual equal and exploiting his learning, Kentridge and his fellow counsel had made Murray an asset for the defence. While Kentridge would no doubt point out that it was de Vos who had unwittingly dealt him this hand, it required an advocate of Kentridge’s skill to avoid both underplaying and overplaying it.

Real events inform his work: Ubu Tells the Truth (1997) combines testimonies from South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1996-2003) with Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play Ubu Roi (Ubu the King) and Jane Taylor’s 1997 drama Ubu and the Truth Commission, which was directed on stage by Kentridge. In his reimagining, the protagonist Ubu becomes an agent of the secret police during Apartheid. No. The dialectical form, the special form, is Engels, of course, but materialism generally is not.’ One of the few secrets of advocacy that can be distilled into a principle is that, while there are many ways of being a bad advocate, the only way in which you will ever be a good one is to be yourself. Kent­ridge was seemingly blessed with the ideal personality.The barrister's barrister . . . a moral stature that no amount of moral forensic technique can impersonate Kentridge is regarded as the best advocate (barrister) in the English-speaking world in the past 50 years. He was born in Johannesburg to Jewish parents whose ancestors had come from Eastern Europe.

Ultimately, Sir Sydney Kentridge KC SC can certainly be said to have done far more good by being part of and challenging the system. His work, in my view, gave legitimacy to Nelson Mandela and those whose dignity was trampled daily. Without the courage and diligence of Kentridge and lawyers like him, apartheid may have lasted a lot longer than it did.

He became the leading lawyer for the defence in political trials in South Africa, with some of his major cases including the Treason Trial (1958 – 1961) and the newspaper Prisons Trial (1968 – 1969). In 1978, he took on the inquest into the brutal killing in police detention of Steve Biko, in which role he was able to expose the circumstances of Biko’s death. Sydney Kentridge carved out a reputation as South Africa's most prominent anti-apartheid advocate - his story is entwined with the country's emergence from racial injustice and oppression. He is the only advocate to have acted for three winners of the Nobel Peace Prize - Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Chief Albert Lutuli. Already world-famous for his landmark cases including the Treason Trial of Nelson Mandela and the other leading members of the ANC, the inquiry into the Sharpeville massacre, and the inquest into the death of Steve Biko, he then became England's premier advocate. Kentridge really shot to prominence during the Treason Trial, where he was part of a team of lawyers under the leadership of Isie Maisels, QC, appearing for the 156 accused. Each member of the team was assigned certain of the accused to lead in the witness box. The young Mandela was assigned to Kentridge, who gave the former a daily lift to the trial in Pretoria in his car. During these drives they would discuss the trial, Mandela’s evidence in it and wider matters of the world. Mandela and all other trialists were eventually acquitted.