About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

Bam, Fikile

Click here for list of interviews

Bam was born on 18 July 1937 in Tsolo in the Eastern Cape.

He graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1960 with a BA, specialising in law. He registered part-time for an LLB, while working as an assistant teacher in comparative African government and law, Sotho and Xhosa. His studies were interrupted when he was arrested in 1960 and he only completed his BProc at Unisa in 1975 after his release from Robben Island.

He practised as an advocate in the Transkei from 1980 to 1985, after which he established the Legal Resources Centre in Port Elizabeth.

Bam has served on numerous commissions of inquiry, including the Goldstone Commission of Inquiry into Violence and Intimidation and a commission of inquiry into espionage activities at the SABC and he has been acting chair of the board of Lawyers for Human Rights. As a member of the Independent Mediation Services of South Africa since 1987 he acted as a mediator and arbitrator in the Eastern Cape.

He was appointed Judge President of the Land Claims Court in 1996.

Source: Mail & Guardian A – Z of South African Politics 1999.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.