64:. His publications include the posthumous "The Cloistered Virtue: Freedom of Speech and the Administration of Justice in the Western World"; "The Taboos in legal research - a personal case history" (in which he discussed his trial and conviction for contempt of court); and, reflecting his other campaigning interest as well as his love for his home city, "Durban At Your Feet, an alternative guide to a city".
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A gifted linguist and great traveller, his post-graduate studies took him to the universities of
Heidelberg, Bonn and Strasbourg, and in the process he became fluent in English, French, and German, and met his future wife, Traute von Oehsen. Despite his undoubted intellectual brilliance, he was
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Professor van
Niekerk was also prominent in campaigning against the destruction of Durban's architectural heritage, in the process making enemies of many commercial and property interests, thus proving his own adage that "if you haven't made enemies, you've made nothing". He thought nothing of
114:, who gave the eulogy, noted that the form of blessing used "asks God to give Barend peace, now and for ever. Well I am not sure that Barend would want peace for ever. Rather let us ask that he should rest for a week or two before he starts campaigning for improvements in heaven."
33:. He was indeed a fearless critic of the apartheid legal system, in particular of the judiciary's racial bias in setting death penalties, but also of imprisonment, torture and solitary confinement; freedom of speech; and the role (and shortcomings) of the judiciary.
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Barend van
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activist in South Africa in the 1970s and early 1980s. This "maverick law professor" was prosecuted twice (and convicted once) by the South
African state prosecutor and privately sued once, all such actions being based on his supposed
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Reflections on the role of courts, government, the legal profession, universities, the media and civil society in a constitutional democracy: Judge Johann van der
Westhuizen (2008) 8 AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS LAW JOURNAL at
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Reflections on the role of courts, government, the legal profession, universities, the media and civil society in a constitutional democracy: Judge Johann van der
Westhuizen
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Alan Paton, eulogy in van
Niekerk's "The Cloistered Virtue: Freedom of Speech and the Administration of Justice in the Western World", Praeger Publishers, New York, 1987
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Louw, R. 2000. The legacy of Barend van
Niekerk: A challenge to the ongoing abuse of prisoners' rights. South African Journal of Criminal Justice, 13(1): 83–98.
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272:"The Faculty of Law, University of Natal: Two in one": JRL Milton, School of Law, Pietermaritzburg; DJ McQuoid-Mason, Howard College School of Law, Durban
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In recent years Barend van
Niekerk's leading role in campaigning for human rights in apartheid South Africa has been acknowledged by, inter alia,
24:, South Africa, 1939; died Bolivia 1981) was a South African acclaimed jurist, a campaigning legal academic and a prominent human rights and anti-
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Paper delivered at a seminar organised by the Nelson
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climbing a ladder to paint the roof of Durban's Old Station that he and others campaigned to save.
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In Memoriam: Barend van Niekerk. Ellison Kahn, 98 S. African L.J. 402 (1981)
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until his death, also holding a professorial chair at the
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University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal: History & Alumni
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