25 Facts About John Didcott

John Mowbray Didcott was a South African judge who served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February 1995 until his death in October 1998.

John Didcott joined the bench in 1975 as a judge of the Natal Provincial Division, where he was known for defending human rights during the apartheid era.

John Didcott entered legal practice in 1956 as an advocate, leading a successful commercial law practice in Durban and taking silk in 1967.

John Didcott was chairperson of the Natal Bar from 1973 to 1975.

Between June 1975 and October 1994, John Didcott served as a judge of the Natal Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa, where he was particularly reputed for his progressive judgments in public and administrative law.

John Didcott was a vocal opponent of capital punishment and famously never handed down a death sentence.

John Didcott served there for less than four years before his death from leukaemia in 1998.

John Didcott was born on 14 August 1931 in Durban in what was then the Natal Province.

John Didcott matriculated at Hilton College in 1948 and attended the University of Cape Town, where he completed a Bachelor of Arts in 1951 and a Bachelor of Laws in 1953.

John Didcott was admitted to the Bar in Cape Town on 26 February 1954, but did not enter practice; instead, he spent a year as a legal reporter for the Cape Argus, covering the Supreme Court of South Africa.

John Didcott left that position in 1955 to join a delegation of the International Student Conference on a tour of universities in southeast Asia.

In July 1956, John Didcott returned to his hometown to establish chambers at the Durban Bar.

John Didcott practised there for the next two decades, with the exception of several months in 1960, when, during the state of emergency that followed the Sharpeville massacre, he fled briefly to Southern Rhodesia to avoid the attention of the security police.

John Didcott had a successful commercial law practice in Durban, and he took silk on 19 July 1967.

On 16 June 1975, at the comparatively young age of 43, John Didcott joined the Natal bench permanently as a judge of the Supreme Court.

In 1983, when legal scholar Raymond Wacks encouraged all "moral judges" to resign in protest, John Didcott articulated his view on this subject in the Sunday Tribune, writing that:.

John Didcott wrote several significant judgments in civil cases, including Roffey v Catterall, on the onus of proof in restraint of trade disputes.

John Didcott was a well-known opponent of capital punishment; he was an overt supporter of the Society for the Abolition of the Death Penalty.

From August to December 1984, John Didcott was a visiting scholar at the Columbia Law School in New York, and that trip to the United States cemented his support for the development of a South African bill of rights akin to the American one.

The In re Dube judgment was admired both by Justice Richard Goldstone and by Chief Justice Arthur Chask n; indeed, Goldstone later said that John Didcott was his judicial "role model".

On 14 February 1995, John Didcott was sworn in as a judge of the Constitutional Court, alongside the rest of the court's inaugural bench.

John Didcott wrote seven majority judgments on behalf of the Constitutional Court: S v Ntuli, Luitingh v Minister of Defence, Case v Minister of Safety and Security, Ynuico v Minister of Trade and Industry, Mohlomi v Minister of Defence, JT Publishing v Minister of Safety and Security, and S v Vermaas; S v Du Plessis.

Similarly, in a concurring judgment in S v Makwanyane, John Didcott affirmed his lifelong opposition to the death penalty, which that case outlawed.

Seriously ill with leukaemia, John Didcott was absent from court for most of 1998, and he died on 20 October 1998 at his home in Durban.

John Didcott was married to Pam Didcott and had two daughters.