|
The Man Who Brought Down The President |
| Publication |
Cape Argus |
| Date | 2008-09-21 |
|
Reporter |
Fiona Forde |
|
Web Link |
During his days as a lecturer at the then University of Natal, Chris
Nicholson established an excellent rapport with the student body.
They were taken with his deep sense of humanity. They were drawn to his charm.
They warmed to his wit.
But above all, they were gratified by his generous marking to the point of once
conferring upon him, in jest, the Mother Theresa Award.
One can't help but wonder what Jacob Zuma would confer upon him today after his
groundbreaking judgment that not only vindicated the ANC chief, but brought down
the president of South Africa.
For many it was an activist judgment that fits
neatly with the history of Nicholson.
Born in 1945 to a prominent farming family in Richmond, Nicholson was educated
at Michaelhouse and went on to read law at the University of Natal in
Pietermaritzburg.
He excelled on the cricket grounds and later founded the Aurora club, a
multi-racial cricket group that broke the restrictive colour codes of that time.
He joined the bar in the 1970s and continued to push the boundaries through the
legal process, wasting little time in carving out a niche as a labour lawyer and
a human rights advocate.
By then he was closely watching the efforts of Arthur Chaskalson, who had
established the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) in Johannesburg, opening pockets of
freedom for those kept down by apartheid.
Nicholson followed suit in 1979 and opened the Durban chapter of the LRC. It was
from there he helped bring some class action suits against the National Party
government.
One of these for which Nicholson is well remembered was the 1984 challenge he
successfully brought against the pass laws, which intended to restrict "idle and
undesirable" people to rural confines.
Two years later, his name was closely associated with Archbishop Denis Hurley's
case against the minister of law and order when he turned the internal security
laws on their head by challenging the right to detain for purposes of
interrogation.
But by the end of that decade the challenge had begun to take its toll.
Exhausted, and diagnosed with ME, Nicholson resigned from his position at the
LRC and took up a lecturing post at the Durban campus of the University of Natal
where he taught evidence, civil procedure and professional practice.
It was a recovery period, in many ways. The pace of his profession in academia
was what the doctor had ordered. It allowed him more time to pursue his personal
interests, sports being one of them.
"I've got to be in court" was the code phrase for tennis when he would steal a
few hours away from the lecture hall. "I'm on a course" was the catch phrase for
golf.
Beyond sport, Nicholson is a big fan of opera, particularly of Richard Wagner,
and during the 80s he would go to great lengths to hear the German composer's
work.
He would later write a book about Wagner's influence on Hitler.
To his close friends, former colleagues and legal peers, Nicholson is a great
raconteur and a man who can spin a great yarn in a wry style. To them, Nicholson
is also a man with a passion for justice, someone who clearly has the courage of
his convictions.
Where others will not venture beyond the letter of the
law, Nicholson does not fear to tread *1.
In the early 1990s, his good health restored, he left the university and
took silk to enable him to become a judge. He was appointed to the bench in
1995, one of the first in the new democracy. He was later appointed to the
Labour Appeal Court, and today he is senior judge on the Natal bench.
Two years ago Nicholson found the government to be in contempt of court over the
provision of antiretrovirals for prisoners at Westville Prison.
Three weeks ago he ruled against the Erasmus Commission, set up by Ebrahim
Rasool to probe allegations of bribery in the City of Cape Town, finding that
the former premier had abused his provincial powers.
One week ago he issued the most damning judgment of them
all *2. This time he found it was President Thabo Mbeki, who appeared to
have abused his powers - so instead of bringing down Zuma, Mbeki brought down
himself.
With acknowledgements to Fiona Forde and Cape Argus.