Jump to navigation

Vol 42 No 3

Published 9th February 2001


Austin Amissah

We are saddened to announce the death of Justice Austin Amissah, a reader, critic and friend of Africa Confidential.

An eminent jurist, academic and author, Justice Amissah's career spanned Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Europe. Born in Ghana in 1930, Justice Amissah became that country's Attorney General and served on Commissions and Enquiries across the Commonwealth. As President of Botswana's Court of Appeal, he made a landmark ruling in favour of Unity Dow's right to confer nationality on her children. He found that the Botswana constitution's guarantee of equal treatment of men and women overrode an immigration regulation stipulating that nationality rights could be conferred only by a man.

A former colleague of Amissah's on the Botswana appeal bench, better known as Nelson Mandela's lawyer, George Bizos, described Amissah as "…a zealous guardian of judicial independence; a patient, helpful and understanding colleague; he avoided prejudgment of any cause and strove to reach a just decision in every case after giving counsel on both sides and his brethren on the bench every opportunity to persuade him what was the right thing to do".



Related Articles

Digging a black hole

As the oil price soars, nuclear power is back in fashion and the uranium to fuel it booms, the speculators get to work

The quoted price for uranium was recently just US$8 per pound. Now it is above US$60. David Miller, a geologist and market analyst, reckons that could double until...


Chinese partners make mining projects viable

With less money around for mining investments, companies are taking on multiple partners

Like many other mining companies, Mwana Africa and its Chief Executive Officer Kalaa Mpinga are not just counting on one company for finance for future mining projects. With...


Geopolitical divides take centre stage at the UN

New policy statements on Africa from Washington and Brussels are being measured against sluggish actions on debt and climate policy

Russia's war on Ukraine dominated the best attended UN General Assembly for years – much to the detriment of progress on preparations for the COP27 climate summit and...


Faulty funding

Wasteful, inefficient and paying scant attention to human rights abuses was the verdict on the €5 billion EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), in a report by...