Respected judge bows out

Although he may have hung up his gown, Justice Dave Smuts says he will still be an active participant in Namibia’s legal system and is looking forward to advocating against injustice and inequality. The Namibian reports that he served as a judge of appeal in the country’s top court since the start of 2015, after serving as a High Court judge since 2011. Smuts retired as a full-time judge of the Supreme Court at the end of November, having reached the mandatory retirement age. He was admitted as an attorney in Namibia in 1982, after he obtained his law degree at Stellenbosch University in SA in 1977. He went on to earn a master’s degree in law at Harvard University in 1983. He was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019, along with former US first lady Michelle Obama and Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote. Smuts also received a human rights award from Human Rights Watch in New York in 1990. He was the first director of the Legal Assistance Centre, which was founded in 1988. His experience as a lawyer in Namibia in the 1980s resulted in him writing Death, Detention And Disappearance (2019), which was inspired by his efforts to defend human rights during the turbulent decade prior to Namibia’s independence.