Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Albie Sachs on his own judgment

"I reread my judgment and couldn't understand it" - Albie Sachs when referring to his dissenting judgment in the South African National Defence Union case.

This was from a very interesting panel discussion I attended yesterday. I will put some notes up from the talk later today and link to the podcast of the event.

People who know me well know that I have great reservations about many of Sach's judgments, the usefulness thereof for lower courts and the general lack of guidance they give to laypeople. So it was with much pleasure that I heard Sachs make that comment.

6 comments:

  1. @Tim I don't even know what that means.

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  2. Are you still going to post those notes and link to the podcast? Keen to read/listen.

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  3. @ Dave - I will post the notes over the weekend. I have emailed the DGRU to find out when those podcasts are going to be posted (I have checked their site and the podcasts aren't up yet).

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  4. Cool, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts as well. You're not the first person I've come across who's made that criticism - I've heard he had more of an activist's approach to his role on the bench, and that he often made giant leaps in his judgement that were sometimes inconsistent with the evidence presented. But I am unfamiliar with the detail of those arguments.

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