Special Hearings — Legal Hearings — 1997-10-27

CHAIRPERSON: ... to welcome you and I'm sorry we've placed you in a little bit of an invidious position by asking you to make a formal submission, but we understand that you haven't been formally apprised of the situation so please just feel free to express yourself. Before you do I'm going to ask Mr Richard Lyster to simply ask you to take the oath please.

MR LYSTER: Thank you. Could you please both give your full names and then, perhaps you should rise and just give us your full names. Just press the red buttons before you do.

MS RICE: I'm Ruth Amelia Rice(?)

MS WILSON: I'm Ilsa Wilson(?)

RUTH AMELIA RAS: (sworn states)

ILSA FISCHER: (sworn states)

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. You may proceed.

RUTH AMELIA RAS: Well first of all we'd just like to say as has been said we are in a rather awkward position because we weren't expecting to give this submission. And secondly of course Jules Browde has said a lot of the stuff that we might have said ourselves. But I think that what I'd like to emphasise is that the fact that Braam being struck off the roll and the fact that it was done with what felt like indecent haste at the time, I think was one of the most traumatic experiences for Braam. That he felt that was one of the worst professional and personal betrayals that he had experienced. That it felt as if the bar council didn't wait until pressure was put on them. That they jumped in straight away to apply for his being struck off. And I suppose in a funny way, as a consequently of President Mandela actually three years ago in a speech he made called for Braam to be readmitted onto the roll and that has taken rather a longer time than the speed with which he was taken off the roll.

ILSA FISCHER: I think I just want to add a few other things about what it was like at the time. I, when Braam was on trial I wanted to study law myself and before he'd gone, estreated bail I went with him to just about every attorney in Johannesburg to apply for articles. Not one of them would employ me. Eventually to their credit Werksmans some six months later did give me a job and particularly Mr Werksman himself and Mr Hyman was very good to me. But I was later listed under the Suppression of Communism Act and therefore couldn't practise. And there was never any outcry about people like that, about the (...indistinct) who were not allowed to practise because their names were put on the list.
 And if we go back to Rivonia where Braam was the leading counsel and I'm sure these that are still here will bear me out, they couldn't find an attorney to do that trial. Gill Joffe had to be - was about to go, to leave the country, to emigrate and was called back because there were not attorneys who were prepared to take cases like that. And then when Ruth Hayman and Gill Joffe himself later were banned and not able to practise I don't remember an outcry at all about why they were not allowed to practise. We heard earlier about people being reinstated after they were found guilty of offences. Louis Baker and Rolly Arenstein were both found guilty of political offences. I don't know if they were ever allowed to practise again. But I also didn't hear an outcry or any comment from the legal profession at the time about what should happen there.
 I mean we even in 1964 had the daughter of a school friend of my mother's so it was completely apolitical friendship, the daughter was staying with us in the house and she was a lawyer and she was practising as a prosecutor.
...(tape ends) But I think that those things should be recorded as well.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Is there anything that you would like to add?

RUTH: No nothing further.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for coming. I think for many of us young lawyers who for, where people like Braam and Rolly Arenstein were the sort of role models I think it's important that today the record is set straight about them, and that we are quite honest about the way in which we deal with those accounts. It was important to hear you and important to hear more particularly that from the organised profession there was no protest or no outcry. Not one loud enough certainly to be heard. Thank you for sharing that with us.
 Mr Lax in fact wants to just place on record that Rolly Arenstein was in fact enrolled before he actually died.

ILSA FISCHER: But many years after he came out of prison.

CHAIRPERSON: Absolutely. Thank you very much. We are now going to break for tea.
HEARING ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION