Obituary

It is with deep sadness that we record the death of Jeremy Pope. It is with deep sadness that we record the death of Jeremy Pope who, together with his colleague Nihal Jayawickrama, was instrumental in the formation of the Judicial Integrity Group.

It is with deep sadness that we record the death of Jeremy Pope who, together with his colleague Nihal Jayawickrama, was instrumental in the formation of the Judicial Integrity Group. His long experience as a barrister in New Zealand, the head of the Legal Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, and as the founding managing director of Transparency International in Berlin, had convinced him that combating corruption in judicial systems and strengthening judicial integrity were essentially the responsibility of the judiciary. It was that belief, and his decades of interaction with judges on all continents, that resulted in the preparatory meeting of the Judicial Integrity Group in Vienna in April 2000.

Jeremy Pope was actively involved in the drafting process of the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct and participated in all the subsequent meetings of the Group until he left London to return to New Zealand. Throughout the last twelve years and, in fact, during the past month as well, until a few days before the accident that led to his untimely death, he was regularly consulted on matters relating to the Group. His advice has contributed immeasurably towards the survival of the Group as an independent and autonomous entity, and its continuing contribution to the judicial world.

Jeremy Pope was a versatile man of deep scholarship and dedication to justice. As the former Chief Justice of South Africa, Pius Langa, recalled, "during South Africa's dark days, Jeremy was a constant and consistent friend and fellow activist." The members of the Group have lost a dear friend and colleague who was dynamic, resourceful, hardworking and a champion of integrity and good governance. Although he died much too young when he had so much more to contribute, his life made a difference to the causes of justice, equality, non-discrimination, integrity and the rule of law.

Pius Nkonzo Langa was born in Bushbuckridge, South Africa, and was nine years old when the National Party came to power on a policy of greater segregation of whites and blacks. That policy of "apartheid" contended that white people were superior and deserved the exclusive benefits of the nation's resources and goods. As he has described it, "Apartheid was a policy of oppression, seeking to dehumanize the natives so that they could better serve those who colonized them". From 1957, he spent three years working in a shirt factory, and in 1960 he accepted a job as an interpreter and messenger in the South African Justice Department. However, through private study he completed his high school education and then obtained B. Juris and LL. B degrees, in 1973 and 1976 respectively, by long distance learning through the University of South Africa. He was admitted as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa in 1977 and practised at the Natal Bar. His practice reflected the struggle against the apartheid system, and his clientele included the underprivileged, various civic bodies, trade unions and people charged with political offences under the oppressive apartheid security legislation. He was a founder member of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers and served as its President from 1988 to 1994. He attained the rank of Senior Counsel in 1994.

During the 1980s and into the 1990s, he was involved in the work of the United Democratic Front, and in the Convention for a Democratic South Africa and its successor, the Multi-Party Negotiating Forum. He was a member of the Constitutional Committee of the African National Congress, and was in the advisor group during the Groote Schuur and Pretoria "Talks-about-Talks". He served as a founder member of the Release Mandela Committee and was a member of the Regional and National Reception Committees formed to prepare for and accelerate the release of political prisoners. He was intimately involved in the processes that led to the establishment of democratic rule in South Africa, including serving on the pre-Constitutional Human Rights Commission, the Police Board, and several commissions of inquiry established at the time.

When the Constitutional Court was established in 1994 in post-apartheid South Africa, Pius Langa was appointed together with ten others as the first judges of the new Court. He became its Deputy President in 1997, and in 2001 assumed the position of Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa. In June 2005, he was appointed his country's Chief Justice and head of the Constitutional Court, and Chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission. He was also the Chairperson of the Southern African Judges Commission (2003-2009), and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

In 1998, Justice Langa chaired a Commission to probe the Lesotho elections on behalf of SADC, and in 2000 he was appointed the Commonwealth's Special Envoy to assist the Fiji Islands return to democracy. He participated in the work of the constitutional review commissions in Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Tanzania, and led a delegation to Cameroon, at the request of the Cameroon Government, to review and integrate that country's system of criminal procedure. He was Chancellor of the University of Natal (1998-2004), and Chancellor of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (2003-2006). He was an honorary professor in law faculties in several universities in his country, and was also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

Justice Langa was awarded Doctor of Laws degrees, honoris causa, by the Universities of Zululand, Western Cape, Cape Town, Unisa, Rhodes, Yale, the National University of Ireland, and the Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. He was awarded the degree Doctor of the Public Service, honoris causa, by the North Eastern University, Boston, Massachusetts. He was honoured with awards for the advancement of justice and human rights by the Black Lawyers Association, the National Association of Democratic Lawyers, and the Judicial Council of the American Bar Association. He was the recipient of the 2004 Justice Prize from the Peter Gruber Foundation, USA, and the 2006 Sydney and Felicia Kentridge Award for Service to Justice. In 2008, the President of the Republic of South Africa bestowed on him the Order of the Supreme Counsellor of the Baobab: Gold "for his exceptional service in law, constitutional jurisprudence and human rights".

Born on 21 December 1921, Prafullachandra Bhagwati graduated in mathematics with a first class degree from Elphinstone College Bombay in 1941, and courted arrest during the national freedom movement in the following year. Having taken his law degree, first class, from the Government Law College Bombay, he practised at the High Court of Bombay. His judicial career commenced with his appointment in 1960 as a Judge of the High Court of Gujarat, followed by his appointment as Chief Justice of Gujarat in 1967. In 1973, he was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and in 1985 as Chief Justice of India.

Justice Bhagwati was one of India's most distinguished jurists, perhaps the most visible member of India's judiciary since independence. During his tenure, the Supreme Court of India developed comprehensive human rights jurisprudence. Through creative interpretation, he expanded the reach and context of the fundamental rights embodied in the Constitution, much beyond the expectation or even the dreams of its makers. Recognizing that the impoverished lacked the resources to litigate, he developed the strategy of Public Interest Litigation by expanding the doctrine of locus standi, enabling any individual, social action group or non-governmental organization to espouse a cause. He introduced a system known as epistolary jurisdiction, whereby a letter of grievance would be sufficient to commence a proceeding. Thereby, human rights was made more meaningful for the poor and the disadvantaged.

Justice Bhagwati was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee since 1995, and served as its Vice-Chairman and Chairman for six years. He was a member of the Committee of Experts of the ILO for over 15 years, and was a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. He was the Regional Adviser for the Asia Pacific Region to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and has carried out several missions for the United Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the International Commission of Jurists. His services were utilized by several countries including Mongolia, Cambodia, Nepal, Ethiopia, and South Africa in framing their Constitutions, and particularly the chapters on human rights. He was a member of the Goldstone Commission of Inquiry in South Africa; he presided over the Peoples Tribunal for Violence against Women at the Vienna Human Rights Congress; and was a member of the International Mediation Team (with Henry Kissinger and Lord Carrington) that mediated between the Inkatha and the African National Congress before the elections in South Africa. He was the Chairman of the Eminent Persons Group, established by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, for the study of questions relating to refugees, Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Geneva; and a member of the Advisory Council of the World Bank for Legal and Judicial Reforms.

Justice Bhagwati was a Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Honorary Member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He was Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad and Chancellor of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Sanskrit Vidyapeeth.

Judge Weeramantry was born in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1926. He was admitted to the Bar at the age of 21 and practised as a lawyer for seventeen years. He was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ceylon at the age of 41, and served in that capacity for five years. In 1972, he accepted the Sir Hayden Starke Chair of Law at Monash University, Melbourne, and occupied it until his election as a Judge of the International Court of Justice in 1991. From 1997-2000, he was Vice-President of that Court.

His dissenting opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, in which he adopted the position that state sovereignty is limited by international law, has been described as 'the most far reaching legal analysis ever written on the laws of war and the use of nuclear weapons'. Of his contribution to the Court, especially through numerous dissenting opinions, a commentator has written: 'Judge Weeramantry enormously expands the range of international law and the sources from which it may draw. He extends international law geographically, by his insistence on studying the civilizations of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific as sources of law; and he extends it temporally by connecting international law with the religious and customary norms adopted by societies which existed centuries ago. In all these different ways, he has sought to enrich the comprehensiveness, coherence, and legitimacy of international law' (Anghie, 14 LIJL 829).

Judge Weeramantry was the Chairman of the Independent Commission of Inquiry established by the Government of Nauru in 1987 to examine the question of responsibility under international law for the rehabilitation of the phosphate lands of Nauru mined-out during international trusteeship. He was the Founder-Chairman of the Weeramantry Centre for Peace Education; President of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms; and Patron of the McGill University Centre for International Sustainable Development Law. He was a Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, Paris; Institute of International Law, Paris; and the World Future Council, Hamburg.

Honours received by him included the Order of Australia for services to the law; UNESCO Peace Education Laureate 2006, and the Right Livelihood Award 2007. In 2007, he received the Sri Lanka Abhimanaya, the highest national award of Sri Lanka. He was a Doctor of Laws of the University of London, and was conferred honorary doctorates by the Universities of London (D.Litt.), Colombo, Monash, and the National Law School of India (LL. D). He published over 23 books (including Justice Without Frontiers; Lord's Prayer: Bridge to a Better World; Islamic Jurisprudence: Some International Perspectives; and The Slumbering Sentinels: Law and Human Rights in the Wake of Technology) and 200 articles on peace, human rights and law, and made presentations in over 45 countries.