Bram Fischer's Participation In The Rivonia Trial

1. INTRODUCTION
Bram Fischer did not get to see the Democratic South Africa we live in today. Bram, along with other prominent figures like Ruth First and Steve Biko died fighting for the nation we live in. Bram did what any advocate should do, stand for what is morally right. As the lead counsel for the defendants in the Rivonia Trial, Bram set the foundation for today’s lawyers by challenging the Positivist approach of law that justified the system of Apartheid. Despite his imprisonment for his participation in the Rivonia Trial, Bram knew what he had done was right, and he stated this in his trial in 1966. Bram is today remembered through the annual Bram Fischer Memorial Lectures. In Johannesburg, Hendrik Verwoerd Drive had been changed to Bram Fischer Drive and Bloemfontein International Airport has become Bram Fischer International.

A man, as Antjie Krog stated in Country of My Skull, [who] “was so much braver than the rest of us,” (Krog, 1998: 24) how he was raised to question society, how he challenged the Apartheid regime and how he died a hero.

2. THE WONDER YEARS
On the 23rd of April 1908, Abram “Bram” Fischer was born

Fischer was not unfamiliar to larger trials, in 1956, Bram played an important role with Issy Maisels in defending Nelson Mandela and other activists in the Treason Trial. The trial was successful for Bram and Issy because on the 29th of March 1961 Mandela and all other anti-apartheid activists were acquitted. This victory would only last for two years because on the 11th of July 1963, after a raid on the quiet and unsuspected Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, which was lead by Lieutenant Willem Petrus van Wyk and a Special Branch of the security police. Operation Mayibuye, Zulu for “comeback”, was discovered. Operation Mayibuye was the plan that would see the Apartheid government