The power of the law to challenge injustice

One of Namibia's senior judges, David Smuts, of that country's Supreme Court, has just published a book on his work during the 1980s when Namibia was still virtually a province of SA. At that time, Smuts was a young lawyer determined to make a difference by exposing and curbing the shocking human rights atrocities he knew were taking place in Namibia on the orders of the SA Government or its security arms. In her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site, Carmel Rickard reviews his book, David Smuts: Death, Detention and Disappearance. She describes it as full of thrilling stories about his work in that period, reminding readers of the power of law, and lawyers, to challenge injustice. As Smuts puts it himself in the sub-title of the book, it is the story of a 'lawyer's battle to hold power to account in 1980s Namibia'.