Freedom Under Law (FUL) has paid tribute to founding Constitutional Court Justice Laurie Ackermann, who recently died.
FUL said his commitment to the rule of law remained an enduring example for practitioners and judges.
FUL saluted the contribution Ackermann had made to the building of constitutionalism in the country, and in asserting the primacy of the rule of law.
Constitutional court colleague Justice Kate O’Regan has written: “Justice Ackermann’s focus on human dignity as a constitutional value was central to his life’s work as a judge. His judicial conscience was always one that ‘was not too sure that it is right’.”
O’Regan said he would “listen closely to his colleagues and gnaw at legal problems incessantly till he felt he had found the right way forward. Once however he had set a course, he was implacable in pursuing it.”
Ackermann practised at the Pretoria Bar from 1958, took silk in 1975, and was appointed to the High Court in 1980.
In 1987 he resigned to take up a chair in human rights law at Stellenbosch.
He returned to the Bench in 1993, and in 1994 he was appointed to the new Constitutional Court.
Justice Ackermann went on to found the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law, which has made a substantial impact on legal academia.
Of Ackermann’s 23 judgments on the Constitutional Court, several were “foundational to the new era of constitutionalism in which it was given to him to play a distinctive role”, said FUL.
Democratic Alliance Shadow Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Advocate Glynnis Breytenbach said, “We mourn the loss of Justice Ackermann and join the countless others in celebrating his remarkable legacy and contribution to South Africa.”