Sydney Kentridge

Sir Sydney Kentridge KCMG, QC (born in 1922) is a prominent member of the English Bar, who previously played a leading part in a number of the most significant political trials in apartheid-era South Africa.

Education

Kentridge was born in 1922 in Johannesburg, where he attended the King Edward VII School.

He graduated from the University of Witwatersrand, before attending Exeter College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first classs BA in Jurisprudence in 1948.

Legal career

In 1949 Kentridge was admitted as an advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa, being appointed a senior counsel in 1965.

He became the leading lawyer for the defence in political trials in South Africa, with some of his major cases including the Treason Trial (1958 – 1961) and the newspaper Prisons Trial (1968 – 1969).

In 1977 he represented the family of Stephen Biko at the inquest following Biko’s death in custody on 7 September 1977. [ [http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/orders_list.asp?show=395 | web-site of the Presidency of the Republic of South Africa, accessed on 31 August 2008] ] "There is indisputable evidence," Kentridge said, "that on the morning of September 6 Mr. Biko went into the interrogation room alive and well. On the morning of the 7th he came out a physical and mental wreck. He died a miserable and lonely death on a cold prison floor." Lord Alexander of Weedon wrote of his performance: "Through remorseless and deadly cross-examination, sometimes with brilliant irony, Kentridge established that the founder of the Black Consciousness Movement had been killed by police brutality. The verdict of accidental death was seen as risible."

Since 1977, he has practised at the English Bar and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1984. He became a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn in 1985. He is a member of Brick Court Chambers, a leading commercial set, and is widely regarded as the elder statesman of the English Bar. [ [http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article3758691.ece | The Times of London, 21 April 2008] ]

He has served as a judge in a number of jurisdictions, sitting as a Judge of Appeal in Botswana (1981-1989), as a Judge of the Courts of Appeal of Jersey and Guernsey (1988–1992) and as an Acting Justice of the South African Constitutional Court (1995–1996).

Honours

Kentridge has been awarded an Honorary LL.D. by the Universities of Leicester (1985), Cape Town (1987), Natal (1989), London (1995), Sussex (1997) and Witwatersrand (2000).He was elected an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford in 1986.He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (1997), an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers (1998) and an Honorary Member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (2001).He is a Knight Commander of the British Order of St Michael and St George (1999) and a Supreme Counsellor of the South African Order of the Baobab in Gold. [ [http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/orders_list.asp?show=395 | Web-site of the Presidency of the Republic of South Africa, accessed on 31 August 2008] ]

Family

Kentridge married Felicia Geffer in 1952. They have two daughters,two sons, two granddaughters and two grandsons.

References