Louis Theodor Christian Harms (born 11 October 1941) is a

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

n judge who served as deputy president of the Supreme Court of Appeal and Professor Extraordinary for Intellectual Property Law at the

University of Pretoria The University of Pretoria (, ) is a multi-campus public university, public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and ''de facto'' capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johan ...

Education

Harms graduated from the

with a BA

LL.B. A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

(

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

) in 1965 and the Hugo Grotius medal for best final year student. He was awarded a LLD (hon causa) from the University of the Free State and the University of Pretoria in 2013.

Biography

An advocate at the Pretoria

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from 1966 to 1986, Harms was awarded senior advocate status in 1981 and appointed as a judge in 1986. He served as a Judge of Appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal from 1993 to his appointment as Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2008, a position he held until his retirement in 2011. He is infamous as the author of the Harms Report. Asked by President F.W.DeKlerk to investigate the State controlled death squads and political murders he set up what is known as the Harms Commission of Inquiry (Feb-Sept 1990). Suspected collusion with the apartheid state was implied after the release of the final report which denied the existence of death squads contradicted later by the mountains of evidence to the contrary uncovered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The records at WITS University concluded: "The Harms Commission report, which was released in September 1990, failed to name any special units of the army or police, let alone any individual officers, as participants in the death squads. The report was denounced by opposition groups as a whitewash. He is the author of three legal books, including ''The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: A Case Book'', which has been translated into

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and

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Memberships and service

Harms served as vice chairman of the Council of the University of Pretoria from 1994 to 1996. Among his other Board roles was serving as a board member on the

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

Law Journal and for the Intellectual Property Journal, Osgood Hall Law School in

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. Harms was project leader on six criminal procedure issues from 1999 to 2003, and the chairman and sole member of four judicial commissions of inquiry in South Africa (1988 to 1990) – three dealing with corruption and related matters, and the other with political murders and other violent acts. Harms is an Honorary Fellow of the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa, the Arbitration Association (Southern Africa), an Honorary Bencher of the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

, UK and also a member of the 4-5

Gray's Inn Square The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wale ...

barristers' chambers in London.

References

External links

*http://whoswho.co.za/louis-harms-5708 *http://4-5graysinnsquare.co.uk/barristers/louis-harms/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Harms, Louis Living people South African judges University of Pretoria alumni 1941 births South African Senior Counsel Judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal (South Africa)