Person

Rubin, Leslie

1909-2002

Leslie Rubin (5/8/1909-31/3/2002) the son of a rabbi, was born in District Six, Cape Town. He was educated at Durban High School and the universities of the Witwatersrand and of South Africa. A lawyer by training, he was a founder of the South African Liberal Party and an elected member of the senate. During the Second World War, he was commissioned in the intelligence corps in North Africa and later seconded to the RAF in Italy. After the war, he settled in Cape Town and joined the War Veterans' Torch Commando, an organisation established to oppose the Nationalist government's plan to remove coloured voters from the common roll. In 1953, Rubin, along with others such as Alan Paton, Leo Marquard and Margaret Ballinger, created the Liberal Party of South Africa, bringing together committed whites, Africans, Indians and coloured people in opposition to the apartheid system. In 1954 he was elected to the senate as a so-called "natives' representative", a position he used to fight every piece of apartheid legislation. Whenever he got up to speak, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of the apartheid system, left the chamber. Rubin resigned from the senate in 1960, before the native representatives' seats were abolished. That same year, Rubin went into exile, initially in Ghana, where he was director of the centre for African law. Later, he taught at various universities, including Queen's College, Belfast, and Howard University, in Washington. He became chairman of the United States committee of the Defence and Aid Fund. He also wrote several text books on South African law. In 1994, he returned to Cape Town.

ZAUCT