Born in 1908, the son of the Judge President of what was then the Orange Free State and the grandson of the first President of the Orange River Colony, Bram Fischer was destined to become either the Prime Minister or the Chief Justice of South Africa. However, driven by a passion for justice, he gave all this up by joining the Communist Party, the single party in South Africa which refused to accept any colour bar.
In doing this, as Nelson Mandela said, “Bram Fischer challenged his own people because he felt that what they were doing was morally wrong. As an Afrikaner, his conscience forced him to be ostracised by his own people and he showed a level of courage and sacrifice that was immeasurable. I fought only against injustice, not against my own people.”
Despite subscribing to the most unpopular political creed amongst white South Africans, Bram had a remarkable legal career. He appeared in many of the most celebrated political trials in South Africa, as well as less publicised trials, sometimes without payment.
In these trials, he would throw himself into the defence with a singleness of purpose and personal dedication only possible for a man devoted both to justice and to the triumph of the ideals which had led the accused to the dock. In between, he also appeared frequently on brief to the great mining corporations in some of the most abstruse legal and financial cases in South African courts. Such was his reputation and personality that he was elected by his colleagues as the Chairman of the Johannesburg Bar Council, despite being a member of the Communist Party.
He appeared in the 1956 Treason trial and after three years the defence team secured the acquittal of all the accused including Nelson Mandela. Later, in the 1963 and 1964 Rivonia Trial, he led the defence team that was instrumental in saving the lives of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and other leaders of the liberation movement at great risk to himself.
Shortly after that trial, Bram went underground in order to help regroup the Communist Party; most of its leaders had been arrested. Named the Red Pimpernel by the media – Nelson Mandela was the Black Pimpernel – he evaded arrest for a year before being tracked down and charged under the Sabotage Act.
Like Nelson Mandela, Bram accepted responsibility for his actions and in his statement to the court said, “Were I to ask for forgiveness today I would betray my cause; that course, my Lord, is not open to me. I believe what I did was right.
“I accept, my Lord, the general rule that for protection of society, laws should be obeyed. But when the laws themselves become immoral, and require the citizen to take part in an organized system of repression – if only by his silence and apathy – then I believe a higher duty arises. This compels one to refuse to recognise such laws.
“It was to keep faith with all those dispossessed by apartheid that I broke my undertaking to the court, that I separated myself from my family, pretended that I was someone else, and accepted the life of a fugitive. I owed it to the political prisoners, to the banished, to the silenced and to those under house arrest not to remain a spectator but to act. I felt responsible not to those who are indifferent to the sufferings of others, but to those who are concerned.
“My conscience, my Lord, does not permit me to afford these laws such recognition, as even a plea of guilty would involve. Hence, although I shall be convicted by this court, I cannot plead guilty. I believe that the future may well say that I acted correctly.”
Bram was sentenced to life imprisonment on 9 May 1966 and remained a prisoner until his death on 8 May 1975, at age 67. Nelson Mandela, refused permission to attend the funeral, was to write subsequently: “The dictators of oppression and brutality had other unintended effects and that is what produced the Bram Fischer’s of our time – men of such extraordinary courage, wisdom and generosity that their like may never be known again.
By Lord Joffe
