Priscilla Jana

After her graduation in 1974, she joined the law firm of Ismail Ayob, a lawyer of Indian origin. The firm's clients included many in the anti-apartheid movement, including Nelson Mandela.[3] In 1977, she went on her first of what would be many trips to Robben Island to meet Mandela. She would later write, "At one time I represented every political prisoner on Robben Island."[3]

Visiting Mandela at Robben Island in 1977 as a solicitor needing his signatures, Jana became the first woman to hug Mandela in 13 years of imprisonment.[5] At the time, even Mandela's wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela could only see him through a glass panel.[5] Jana became Mandela's personal attorney and her access allowed her to pass coded messages from the ANC organization to Mandela, while joking and teasing.[5] As one of the very few South Africans who had access to Mandela during his imprisonment in the island, she also carried back coded messages from Mandela and the other political prisoners to the ANC leadership, including President Oliver Tambo.[4]

As an articled clerk, she represented the members of Soweto Students' representative council, against state brutality, following the 1976 Soweto Uprising.[5]

In one of her high-profile cases from this time she defended a 22-year-old activist and UMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) member, Solomon Mahlangu, who was eventually convicted under the Terrorism Act, 1967 for the murder of two white people. Mahlangu was sentenced to death and subsequently hanged, due to prevailing common purpose laws that judged perceived complicity as harshly as the crime itself. The case generated global outrage. Jana was one of the last of Mahlangu's supporters to see him on the night prior to his execution, and came back carrying a message to carry on with the fight for freedom. His last message conveyed through her went on to be a rallying cry for his supporters, "Tell my people that I love them. They must continue the fight. My blood will nourish the tree that bears the fruits of freedom."[3][5]

In 1979, Jana opened her own law practice, focusing on civil liberties and human rights cases.[2] However, very soon in 1980, she was handed a banning order under the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950 for five years, imposing an overnight curfew on her and limiting her to meeting with only one person, as well as limiting her public speeches.[3][4]

During this time Jana also joined the underground cell of the African National Congress, UMkhonto we Sizwe, which was led by future South African President, Thabo Mbeki, from London, to whom Jana used to report.[7][4] The cell had as its members Jackie Selebi, Beyers Naudé, and Cedric Mayson.[4]

Through her career, Jana represented many leaders of the anti-apartheid movement, including South African president Nelson Mandela, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Steve Biko, Ebrahim Ebrahim, Ahmed Kathrada, Solomon Mahlangu, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.[8]

She started off by representing Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as their lawyer in the mid-1970s. She had gotten to know the couple when Mandela was serving imprisoned at the Robben Island prison.[3] This was around the same time that Madikizela-Mandela had been arrested and detained in solitary confinement before being relegated to a segregated Black township in the Orange Free State. Racially motivated laws of the time meant that as a person of Indian origin, Jana was not allowed to stay overnight while visiting her client.[3] She continued to remain connected with Madikizela-Mandela as she was released from Brandfort and began to appeal to more radical and younger protesters who took to more radical forms of protest in taking on authorities.[3]

At the same time, Jana took exception when Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to prison for kidnapping of a young boy, Stompie Moeketsi, noting that this action had resulted in the anti-apartheid movement being drawn into this matter and being tarnished in the process.[3] She went on to raise this objection with Mandela when he was released from prison. She also expressed her own radical side when she faulted Mandela for forgiving his former opponents upon being released from prison.[3]

Jana was targeted by state agents in the mid-1980s, with her home bombed with Molotov cocktail attacks. Her offices were periodically raided, with files and documents often rummaged through in an effort to intimidate her.[6] But, these actions did not deter her. She took on activist client Popo Molefe and his wife Phinda Molefe's baby girl, Albertina, when the mother left her behind in Jana's office in despair.[5][6] Many years later, in 2001, Jana officially adopted Albertina.[5]

Jana also represented the poet Benjamin Moloise, who was condemned to death by hanging for the killing of a policeman in 1982. Her efforts had helped mobilize global attention and subsequent calls from global organizations and governments asking the then-South African government to grant clemency. Jana was with Moloise's elderly mother on a vigil in 1985 when the elder Moloise's house was surrounded by soldiers and tear-gassed.[9] An earlier request by her for a retrial had been turned down by the South African government.[10][11] Moloise was executed in October 1985, at the age of 30.[9][12]

Representing Govan Mbeki, former national chairman of the African National Congress, Jana helped secure his release from the Robben Island prison in 1987, after serving 23 years of a life sentence. The release of the 77-year-old came with severe restrictions including geographical limits for him to remain within the Port Elizabeth region. This release was regarded as a "trial run" for the eventual release of Nelson Mandela from the same prison.[13]

Jana was also a part of the Black Consciousness Movement that opposed movements to ensure multiracialism in the African National Congress. In a high-profile case, she took on the South African Medical and Dental Council in 1984 to prove that two doctors who were providing care to anti-apartheid activist and Black Consciousness Movement leader Steve Biko, had acted improperly when Biko died in custody in 1977.[3][14] The case ended up finding the two white doctors guilty in 1985.[3][15] She was also an activist member of the Democratic Women's Movement, and issued calls for boycott of the apartheid elections and the creation of a new apartheid constitution, in August 1985. Participating in the campaign to boycott the elections, she had said, "Anybody, Colored or Indian, who participates in the new constitution will be as guilty as the perpetrators of this crime against the people. He who participates is a traitor."[16]

In this period, Jana was a part of a collective of legal challengers who battled civil and human rights cases across the country to end apartheid and usher democracy into the country.[3] At a time when most legal activists saw their role within the bounds of the legal system, Jana often crossed over into being a radical activist. While she worked as lawyer on human rights cases, she would be seen working at nights with underground activists on more violent means to combat apartheid, including having carried AK-47s in the boot of her car from Soweto on behalf of an underground client, to prevent their confiscation.[3][5] Through this period, she was also a member of Black People's Convention and the Anti-Constitutional Committee and Federation of Transvaal Women.[14]

With the advent of democracy and the African National Congress (ANC) in power in 1994, Jana joined as an ANC lawmaker, and served as a Member of Parliament between 1994 and 1999.[17] She represented Krugersdorp.[18] She had also been a member of the South African Law Commission, and a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee.[19] She was a member of the justice committee that was responsible for the roll-out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.[5] Jana was also a contributor to President Thabo Mbeki's Millennium Africa Recovery Programme (MAP), which represented a pan-African initiative to set Africa on a path to sustainable development and growth, and actions to eradicate poverty. Writing in a paper titled African Renaissance and the Millennium Action Plan, Jana described the framework as bringing together Africa's resources, across a combination of mineral and material, bio-diversity, cultural, and human resources, to deliver on continent-wide development goals.[20][21]

She also went on to serve as South Africa's ambassador to the Netherlands from 2001 to 2005 and as the ambassador to Ireland from 2006 to 2011, serving as a diplomat for a total of nine years.[17][4] She took charge as the commissioner and deputy chair person of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in 2017.[17][14]

She was the recipient of a lifetime achievement award at the Woza Awards in 2017, an award established to identify and recognize women in the legal fraternity.[19]