FROM THE SLUMS TO SUPER JUDGE

Poor local residents in Clairwood, the ‘Little India' of Durban South Africa, collected money to send smart Navi to the university. That gesture made a career possible that now ends in The Hague. In July 2003 Navanethem Pillay- (62) was sworn as a judge of the international sentence court.

Between Durban and The Hague lie the fight against the former white power, the intellectual Walhalla of Harvard and the people assassination in Rwanda. Her notion for justice formed itself under the South African Apartheid laws: ‘of course I sometimes had the sense to kill someone, she says. But between fantasy and action the law got in the way.

A First lady in law is what you can call her. The first woman with a lawyers practice in Durban during the Apartheid regime in South-Africa. The first black woman in South-African Supreme Court after the Apartheid regime fell. The first judge ever to pronounce a condemnation for genocide against the Rwandan mayor Akayesu in Rwanda in 1998. The first judge who punished rape as a form of genocide. The first woman who - already in the first round and with a majority of the votes - was chosen as a judge of the international sentence court.

Just before she left the Rwanda Tribunal, she condemned two persons for life because of genocide. After this she flew to New York where she received the Women's Rights Prize, one of the many in her human rights price cupboard. By the end of February 2004 Navanethem Pillay starts her six years period as a judge in The Hague. There she will complete her career as a jurist. A job that with right can be called a super job: the judge of the international sentence court. Pillay is one of the seven women under the eighteen judges. more features

Janary 15, 2004