w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m M A Y 2 0 1 8 17
water, social security and land. These
rights, existing in the no-man's-land
between law and policy, gave powerful
arguments to activist lawyers. One for-
mer constitutional court judge is quoted
in the Queens/Ulster report as saying,
"If you want the triumph of idealist
transformatory law with lawyers in a way
at the helm, I wouldn't say driving the
whole process but at the helm, I would
say the South African Constitution mak-
ing process was an example."
Since 1994, public interest litigation
and lawyering in general have helped
deliver on post-apartheid promises. A
prominent example was the successful
challenge by gay and lesbian groups of
sodomy laws. Another was the Treat-
ment Action Campaign's case forcing the
government to allow the administering in
public hospitals of anti-retroviral drugs
to children born of mothers with HIV/
AIDS. The government was also ordered
to develop a comprehensive national pro-
gram to prevent or reduce mother-to-
child HIV/AIDS transmission. But seri-
ous problems of access to justice, familiar,
alas, to Canadians as well, are everywhere.
Many South Africans, just like Canadians,
are unaware of their legal rights and,
in any event, do not have the financial
resources to pursue them.
During apartheid, most South Afri-
can lawyers eschewed moral responsibil-
ity and were simple legal technicians,
navigating thoughtlessly through evil laws
handed to them by wicked politicians.
Then, with the end of apartheid, and the
putting in place of a new and empowering
constitution, many lawyers became what
lawyers should always be, legal architects
using the law to build justice and equality.
Update
Recent "Troubled World" columns con-
sidered the legal professions in Ukraine
and China. Since they were written, there
have been unpleasant developments in
both countries.
In my Ukraine column, I noted, "New
York law firm Skadden Arps apparently
indirectly received large payments for
advice given in 2012 to the pro-Russian
government of Viktor Yanukovych, who
later fled the country. . . . Bloomberg News
has reported that it was Paul Manafort, the
recently federally indicted former Trump
campaign manager, who recruited Skad-
den to give legal advice to Yanukovych."
In late February, the New York Times
reported that a Skadden lawyer, Alex van
der Zwaan, had been charged with lying to
the special counsel investigating Russian
election interference.
In my column on China, I wrote that
Chinese lawyers "operate in a system
where, to function effectively, they have
to turn their faces to the wall and pre-
tend things are not as they really are. For,
in China, state power and the power of
the Communist Party are supreme." At
the beginning of March, the Wall Street
Journal reported that lawyers protesting
the proposed removal of presidential
term limits were visited by police and
threatened with disbarment.
Philip Slayton has been a visiting professor
at the University of Cape Town's law faculty.
His latest book is How To Be Good: The
Struggle Between Law and Ethics.
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