Description
When Parliament put racial legislation on the Statute Book, judges in South Africa were faced with a dilemma. Should the resign or apply the apartheid laws of which they disapproved? Brushes with the Law is the inside story of Marius Diemont, a judge who remained on the Bench and for three decades tried to temper justice with mercy.
Marius Diemont grew up at Oudtshoorn in the Karoo. The young Diemont went to UCT, where he was expelled for organising a student protest, was pardoned, and then became head student. His early years at the Cape Bar were a struggle until he wrote a law book which became a bestseller. He was sent to Kemberley as a young judge. There he inevitable came into conflict with the burgeoning illicit diamond trade.
On his return to Cape Town he conducted the enquiary into the Langa Riots and had to contend with the hostility of Frans Erasmus, then Minister of Justice. In his 18 years in Cape Town he sat in a number of terrorist trials as well as the famous Scissors Murder case. In 1977 he led a team of judges to Robben Island in an attempt to settle problems between the warders and Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other political prisoners.
Brushes with the Law is more than just a book about a legal career. It is also a story of a warm, compassionate man with wide interests who writes easily and with humour and looks at South Africa’s revolution from a new angle.
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