My South African Safari
by Christopher M. Rassi
Africa is much more than safaris and game reserves. Tourists in Africa love game reserves because game viewing is pleasurable, simple, harmonious, and safe. There is no strife and no starvation. As there are not many Africans on game reserves, outsiders are in an environment insulated from the realities of the continent. This was not what I was looking for in Johannesburg, South Africa.
During a recess from the Constitutional Court of South Africa, where I was clerking for Justice Yvonne Mokgoro, I traveled from Arusha, Tanzania, to Nairobi, Kenya. I had just spent the week observing Appeal Chamber hearings at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). I felt a certain ownership in my previous work at the Hague and seized the opportunity to join the Appeals Chamber and Judge Weinberg de Roca at the ICTR hearings.
A young woman sitting next to me on the bus asked whether I was on a business or pleasure trip. Truthfully, I was there for a greater purpose. I cannot characterize my year abroad as one of travel, work, or even pleasure. As I reflect, a more accurate description is to call it the process of life, or how I chose to pass the time. It was a rewarding way to spend a year, both professionally and spiritually.
How can law be spiritual? The South African past is painful and not entirely forgotten. This history makes it difficult for an often ignorant young professional not to be superficial or clichéd. I found myself questioning people in and around the Constitutional Court about their past and experiences.
The court itself inspires reminiscences and brings to the fore a past that is dark with martyrdom, omnipresent in the halls, in the art, and in the courtroom. It appeared as though history’s trapped souls were floating adjacent to a building that had become the most notorious prison in the country, the Old Fort and “native” jail. I had read and heard that this location was chosen for the new court because it captured “history,” “the struggle,” and “Jo’burg.” The most significant building of the Old Fort, the prison known as “No. 4,” was left untouched and now stands as a newly healed sore. It is still rough with scar tissue but emerges as a powerful statement.
The court’s architecture is fitting for this young democracy. As Justice Albie Sachs says, the court could have had tall Roman columns and a woman carrying the scales of justice, but these traditional symbols were “justice jarred” and emblematic of “dead, white, male judges.” After the long fight for the South African Constitution, these characteristics did not seem even remotely appropriate, he says. Instead, the court building is welcoming, a place where people can feel safe and secure. It is made of eight materials: "Concrete, stone, steel, glass, timber, light, imagination, and love," Justice Sachs says. I was aware of these quintessential components each morning as I walked into the court.
Early one morning, in front of a packed courtroom, I was given my first opportunity to call a case to order, to robe, and sit in the courtroom in front of the judge. Dressed in my finest suit—a light grey with thin but distinguished blue pinstripes—I had arrived at the court early to prepare. Yet, all of this preparation did nothing to ease my nerves. To add to the significance of my court appearance, I soon realized that I was improperly dressed (clerks must wear black and white and the robe). In a panic, I dashed for the changing room, only to knock over a carafe of water placed on my desk in court. All of the comedy aside, I was about to experience what we often take for granted in the United States.
Our legal system was similarly developed by freedom fighters more than two centuries ago. Now in 2004, the tenth anniversary of this court, I was witness to the development of a South African legal system which is the product of the Apartheid struggle. At that point, it did not matter if I had on my best suit or a borrowed one to match my colleagues. I was witnessing a process that was enabling a country to begin to heal its wounds and reexamining with new eyes the major social and economic issues that we fail to appreciate. I was watching a young democracy at work.
A fellow clerk likened my experience to clerking for the U.S. Supreme Court during the case of Marbury v. Madison. She was indeed right: The modern decisions of the highest court in South Africa are forming the foundation of constitutional law in the new South Africa. I am grateful for the opportunity to have made a small contribution to a judgment that upholds the rights of South Africans.
In 2004, Christopher M. Rassi (CWR ’00; GRS ’00, political science; LAW and MGT ’03) served as law clerk to the Honorable Justice Yvonne Mokgoro of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. In 2003, he was a Frederick K. Cox International Law Center Postgraduate Fellow, clerking for Judge Weinberg de Roca, Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Today, he is an associate at Thompson Hine LLP in Cleveland and co-teaches the War Crimes Research Lab course at the Case School of Law.
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