Pius Langa

It was 1956, in Durban.

A young man was looking for work. He could not find any. And apartheid's pass laws would not even let him stay in the city.

His name was Pius Langa.

He was born on March 25, 1939, in Bushbuckridge, in the former Transvaal. He was the second of seven children. His father was a Zulu-speaking preacher. His mother was Swazi.

At sixteen, at the end of 1955, he had left school.

In early 1957, he finally found a job, in a shirt factory. His work: handing out fabric to the machinists at their machines.

With his wages, he paid for his own schooling. On his own, he prepared for his final high-school exams. He passed them at the end of 1960.

Then he joined the Department of Justice. He was an interpreter and messenger in the courts of Natal. He stayed about seventeen years. He became a prosecutor, then a magistrate.

Part-time, he studied law by correspondence, at the University of South Africa. A degree in 1973. Then another in 1976.

In 1977, he left the department. He became an advocate.

Now he stood on the other side of the courtroom. He defended trade unionists, members of civic associations, people charged with political offences under apartheid laws.

From 1988 to 1994, he led an association of democratic lawyers, NADEL. In 1990, he helped found a committee for the release of Nelson Mandela, in Natal. He took part in the negotiations to end apartheid.

In October 1994, Nelson Mandela appointed him to the new Constitutional Court.

On June 6, 1995, the Court handed down its decision in S v Makwanyane. The death penalty was declared unconstitutional.

Each of the eleven judges wrote an opinion.

Pius Langa wrote that the value of human life is beyond measure. And that the State, too, must uphold it by example.

He also wrote about ubuntu. A culture, he said, that places emphasis on community and on the interdependence of its members.

In ubuntu, each person is owed respect, dignity and acceptance. But each must, in turn, give the same to everyone else.

And it places emphasis on:

In 1997, he became Deputy President of the Court. In 2005, Chief Justice of South Africa. He served until 2009.

He helped other countries too. He was a Commonwealth envoy to Fiji. He took part in constitutional review commissions in Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Sri Lanka.

Pius Langa died on July 24, 2013, in Johannesburg. He was 74. An official funeral was held at Durban City Hall.

Durban, the city where, as a young man, he had not been allowed to stay.

A young worker who handed out fabric at the machines. A man who, years later, wrote the word ubuntu into a ruling of his country's highest court.