George Bizos

Bizos was the son of Antonios (known to his family and friends as "Antoni") Bizos, the mayor of the small village of Vasilitsi, south of Koroni and Kalamata on the Messenia peninsula of the Peloponnese, Greece.[1] He was born on 15 November 1927 (although recorded incorrectly on his South African identity documents as 1928, owing to his father's declaration to the authorities upon arrival in Egypt).[2]

In May 1941 at the age of thirteen, George Bizos and his father helped seven New Zealand soldiers (Don Gladding, Mick Karup, Peter Martin, John Lewis and three others) who were hiding in the hills to escape the Nazi-occupied Greek mainland to Crete. He says the escape did not go well and he was adrift for three days until he managed to attract the attention of crew on the British destroyer, HMS Kimberley, which was on its way to the Battle of Crete. After the battle HMS Kimberley dropped him off at Alexandria, Egypt.[3]

As a refugee he was sent to South Africa and landed in Durban.[4] From there he went by train to Johannesburg, disembarking at the Braamfontein railway station.[5] At the time, the Ossewabrandwag, an Afrikaner group with Nazi sympathies, were demonstrating against the arrival of refugees. The Ossewabrandwag blamed Jan Smuts for bringing the vuilgoed (rubbish) of Europe to South Africa. The local Greek community helped integrate him into society.[6]

Bizos did not go to school for his first two years in the country, because he could not speak English or Afrikaans.[6] He gained entry to the University of the Witwatersrand in 1949, starting a 3-year Bachelor of Arts degree, followed by a three-year LLB law degree. It was here that he first became politically active, joining the Students' Representative Council under the leadership of Harold Wolpe.[5]

Bizos joined the Bar in Johannesburg in 1954.[5] During the 1950s and 1960s he was counsel to a wide range of well-known people including Trevor Huddleston of Sophiatown.[5]

At the Rivonia Trial from 1963-64, Bizos was part of the team that defended Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and Walter Sisulu. The accused were sentenced to life imprisonment, but spared the death penalty. Although it is sometimes said that he claims to have drafted Mandela's famous speech spoken at the trial, he says that his main contribution was to advise the use of the words "if needs be" before Mandela said that he was prepared to die.[4] Bizos believed that this may have contributed to the avoidance of the death penalty, by having Mandela not appear to seek martyrdom. This trial heralded the arrival of a group of tough human rights lawyers – Joel Joffe, Harry Schwarz, Arthur Chaskalson and Harold Hanson.[7]

Bizos was counsel at various inquests into the deaths of people in detention.[5]

Bizos became a senior member of the Johannesburg Bar in 1978. He is a member of the National Council of Lawyers for Human Rights, which he helped found in 1979. He was Senior Counsel at the Legal Resources Centre in Johannesburg in the Constitutional Litigation Unit. He was a judge on Botswana's Court of Appeal from 1985 to 1993.[8]

In 1990, Bizos became a member of the African National Congress' (ANC) Legal and Constitutional Committee,[8] and at Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) he served as advisor to the negotiating teams and participated in drawing up the Interim Constitution. He was involved in the drafting of legislation, and particularly the Truth and Reconciliation Bill and amendments to the Criminal Procedures Act, to bring it into line with Chapter 3 of the constitution, guaranteeing fundamental human rights to all citizens of South Africa.

In the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Bizos was the leader of the team that opposed applications for amnesty on behalf of the Biko, Hani, Goniwe, Calata, Mkonto, Mhlauli, Slovo and Schoon families.[1]

In 1994, Bizos was appointed by President Mandela to the Judicial Services Commission[8] which, in terms of the constitution, recommends candidates for appointment as judges and proposes reforms to the judicial system to erase its apartheid past. Bizos was the leader of the team for the South African Government to argue that the death penalty was unconstitutional, and counsel for the National Assembly in the Certification of the Constitution by the Constitutional Court.

In 2005, Bizos was legal advisor to Nelson Mandela in a bitter legal dispute with Mandela's former lawyer, Ismail Ayob.[9][10][11] [12]

Bizos represented the Chinese Association of South Africa in a case that ended in 2008 in which Chinese South Africans were granted 'previously disadvantaged' status, thus qualifying them for Black Economic Empowerment benefits.[13]

In the 1970s Bizos helped start a Greek school, called SAHETI. It embraced Hellenism, yet was non-exclusionist, even during the heart of apartheid. It was here that people like Chris Hani's children were educated.[20]

In 2013, two of Mandela's daughters brought court action to oust Bizos, ex-Housing Minister Tokyo Sexwale and lawyer Bally Chuene as directors of two of Mandela's firms. Bizos said that the daughters were trying to "get their hands on things that should not be sold". The case was delayed after the daughters' lawyer Ismail Ayob withdrew from the case.[21][22][23][24]

Bizos was married to Arethe Daflos, known as "Rita", who died sometime before his 90th birthday in November 2017. The couple have three sons.[7][8]

Bizos celebrated his 91st birthday in 2018.[25]

• 1999: Order for Meritorious Service Class II medal from then President Mandela.
• 2001: 2001 International Trial Lawyer Prize of the Year by the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.
• 2004: The International Bar Association (IBA) named Bizos the winner of the 2004 Bernard Simons Memorial Award[26]

• George Bizos Saheti Scholarship and Bursary Fund[7]
• Arethe Daflos-Bizos Arts Scholarship (announced on Bizos' 90th birthday to honour his late wife)[7]

• No One to Blame?: In Pursuit of Justice in South Africa. New Africa Books. 1998. ISBN 978-0-86486-319-5.
• Odyssey to Freedom. South Africa: Penguin & Random House. 2011. ISBN 978-1-4152-0307-1.
• 65 Years of Friendship. Penguin Random House South Africa. 2017. ISBN 9781415208861.

• "Still fighting for his friend: An interview with George Bizos". The Economist. 21 July 2013.
• Austin Sarat; Stuart Scheingold, eds. (2005). The Worlds Cause Lawyers Make: Structure and Agency in Legal Practice. Stanford University Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-0804752299. ...leading human rights lawyer George Bizos
• Pal Ahluwalia; Stephen Atkinson; Peter Bishop; Pam Christie; Robert Hattam; Julie Matthews, eds. (2012). Reconciliation and Pedagogy. Routledge. p. 191. ISBN 978-0415687218. George Bizos, a pre-eminent human rights lawyer who was part of the defence team in the Rivonia treason trial

• SAHETI school

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