WHEN former President Nelson Mandela came into office in 1994 he made a crucial decision.
WHEN former President Nelson Mandela came into office in 1994 he made a crucial decision. He appointed members of the new Constitutional Court, including Dr Albie Sachs.
Perhaps more than any other figure bar Mandela himself, Sachs was pivotal in the new South Africa becoming the ??Rainbow Nation??, with the world??s first constitutional guarantee of equal rights with respect to sexual orientation and not simply race and colour .
This led to the courts ruling for comprehensive legal equality: first on employment discrimination in 1996, decriminalisation of same-sex sexual acts in 1998, equal age of consent in 2007, together with same-sex adoption, and marriage in 2006.
Sachs last year was awarded an honorary doctorate by Strathclyde University and delivered a lecture on issues of justice, vengeance, truth and reconciliation.
Now, fast approaching his 80th birthday he has accepted the offer to become a visiting professor at the university??s school of law.
That such a world-leading advocate for human rights and peace, whose life has been both remarkable and inspirational, should devote his time to students in the city is further testament to Scotland??s role in the anti-Apartheid struggle.
According to Sachs, the Scots well of inspiration informing, energising and galvanising the freedom struggle in South Africa took in the Enlightenment, David Livingstone, the Red Clydesiders, and David Steele.
??I have felt very very at home here?? he told The Herald. It is an honour to have him.
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