DEATH, DETENTION AND DISAPPEARANCE, a lawyer's battle to hold power to account in 1980s Namibia

355pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Cape Town, 2019

Justice David Smuts was a young lawyer in Windhoek, Namibia, in the 1980s. In this memoir he discusses the cases he took on defending detainees, setting up the Legal Assistance Centre of Namibia, and the assassination of his friend, SWAPO activist Anton Lubowski.

"An engrossing read, crammed with courtroom dramas and car chases to the border and back. A story about the battle for human dignity in the 1980s - inspiring for all who still live in history's shadow." Justice Edwin Cameron

"Shows how sheer courage and commitment to the attainment of freedom propelled activists like Smuts, not without risk to their lives, to hold the regime in southern Africa to account for its unlawful actions." Sisa Namandje, Namibian lawyer

David Smuts has been a Judge of the Supreme Court of Namibia since 2015. From 2011 to 2014 he served as Judge of the High Court of Namibia, before which he was in private practice in Windhoek as senior counsel. He co-founded The Namibian newspaper in 1985 and from 1988 to 1992 was founder director of the Legal Assistance Centre of Namibia. In 1990 he was elected an Orville H. Schell Jr Fellow at the Yale Law School and as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.