Professor Barend van Niekerk (born Pietermaritzburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, 1939; died Bolivia 1981) was an South African acclaimed jurist, a campaigning legal academic and a prominent human rights and anti- apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1970s and early 1980s. This "maverick law professor" was prosecuted twice (and convicted once) by the South African state prosecutor and privately sued once, all such actions being based on his supposed

contempt of court Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...

. He was indeed a fearless critic of the apartheid legal system, in particular of the judiciary's racial bias in setting death penalties, but also of imprisonment, torture and solitary confinement; freedom of speech; and the role (and shortcomings) of the judiciary. A gifted linguist and great traveller, his post-graduate studies took him to the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn and Strasbourg, and in the process he became fluent in English, French, and German, and met his future wife, Traute von Oehsen. Despite his undoubted intellectual brilliance, he was anything but an otherworldly academic; indeed, as

Cry the Beloved Country ''Cry, the Beloved Country'' is a 1948 novel by South African writer Alan Paton. Set in the prelude to apartheid in South Africa, it follows a black village priest and a white farmer who must deal with news of a murder. American publisher Benn ...

author,

Alan Paton Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 – 12 April 1988) was a South African writer and anti-apartheid activist. His works include the novels ''Cry, the Beloved Country'' and '' Too Late the Phalarope''. Family Paton was born in Pietermaritzbu ...

, noted, his "intellectual eminence was hidden from many by his downright earthiness, and by the downright earthiness of his language". Professor van Niekerk was also prominent in campaigning against the destruction of Durban's architectural heritage, in the process making enemies of many commercial and property interests, thus proving his own adage that "if you haven't made enemies, you've made nothing". He thought nothing of climbing a ladder to paint the roof of Durban's Old Station that he and others campaigned to save. A graduate of Stellenbosch University, he served as Professor of Law at the Howard College School of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal until his death, also holding a professorial chair at the University of the Witwatersrand. His publications include the posthumous "The Cloistered Virtue: Freedom of Speech and the Administration of Justice in the Western World"; "The Taboos in legal research - a personal case history" (in which he discussed his trial and conviction for contempt of court); and, reflecting his other campaigning interest as well as his love for his home city, "Durban At Your Feet, an alternative guide to a city". In recent years Barend van Niekerk's leading role in campaigning for human rights in apartheid South Africa has been acknowledged by, inter alia, UNHCR Special Rapporteur and International Court of Justice judge John Dugard, Constitutional Court judge

Kate O'Regan Catherine "Kate" O'Regan (born 17 September 1957) is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Constitutional Court of South Africa. From 2013 to 2014 she was a commissioner of the Khayelitsha Commission and is now the inaugura ...

, ANC activist and Robben Island prisoner Mac Maharaj, Sir

Sydney Kentridge Sir Sydney Woolf Kentridge (born 5 November 1922) is a South African-born lawyer, judge and member of the Bar of England and Wales. He practised law in South Africa and the United Kingdom from the 1940s until his retirement in 2013. In South Af ...

QC, Australian judge David Ipp and Kwa-Zulu Natal's premier, Sibusiso Ndebele. Barend van Niekerk died of heart failure while travelling at altitude in Bolivia in 1981. He was survived by his wife and two daughters. The University of Kwa-Zulu Natal gives an annual Barend Van Niekerk Prize for the most outstanding Jurisprudence law student. At van Niekerk's funeral service,

, who gave the eulogy, noted that the form of blessing used "asks God to give Barend peace, now and for ever. Well I am not sure that Barend would want peace for ever. Rather let us ask that he should rest for a week or two before he starts campaigning for improvements in heaven."

References

External links

*In Memoriam: Barend van Niekerk. Ellison Kahn, 98 S. African L.J. 402 (198

* Reflections on the role of courts, government, the legal profession, universities, the media and civil society in a constitutional democracy: Judge Johann van der Westhuizen

*University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal: History & Alumn

*Louw, R. 2000. The legacy of Barend van Niekerk: A challenge to the ongoing abuse of prisoners' rights. South African Journal of Criminal Justice, 13(1): 83–98. *"The Faculty of Law, University of Natal: Two in one": JRL Milton, School of Law, Pietermaritzburg; DJ McQuoid-Mason, Howard College School of Law, Durba

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niekerk, Barend Van 1939 births 1981 deaths 20th-century South African lawyers Afrikaner people South African people of Dutch descent People from Pietermaritzburg