Right on the border for HYS so hoping this can push me in. Any comments are appreciated!
Aaaack puuuuuuuuh! The large, loud, drunk man just spit a glob of blood on the side of the wall. Unfortunately for him, he was also covered in blood from his face down to his stomach. Unfortunately for me, I was stuck in a jail cell with him, in South Africa.
I had received an opportunity to spend an all-expenses paid summer in Cape Town interning with a human rights group. On our first day at the office the other interns and I were put in charge of creating a digital library about South Africa’s Bill of Rights. We tirelessly researched Constitutional Court cases, international law documents, and the history of Apartheid to put these rights in context. During my two months there I became increasingly impressed with their progressive Bill of Rights, which, unlike the American Bill of Rights, focused on socio-economic rights in addition to political and civil liberties.
I was actually just finishing up a presentation about Bill 35 on “arrested, detained, and accused persons” when I left to go to the biggest rugby game Cape Town has had in years. I had no idea that the man that sold us the tickets stole them at gunpoint from a 15 year old boy. Let alone that I would be arrested by a police officer end up sitting in a jail cell for the remainder of the day and most of the night. FRAGMENT SENTENCE
I spent less than 12 hours in jail before I was released after proving my innocence. During the 12 hours I saw a man get beaten by a prison guard, something which I know was not “consistent with human dignity” as the aforementioned Bill 35 promised detained people. However, I also saw guards follow many of the rules required by the Bill of Rights, and watched other high ranking guards show great respect to the constitution when it was invoked by a lawyer. so, 12 hours gave you significant insight? That’s how this comes off to me
The experience provided me with a different perspective of the laws than the historical and theoretical viewpoint I was previously using. While I would not consider the event life changing, I have always put an emphasis on trying to understand situations from different perspectives. I have done this in many aspects of my life, from academics, where I was the only person in my class to have a finance concentration and be active in a Marxist reading group cut the Marxist ref, to social situations where I always try to look at other people’s points of view cool, this is vague and tells me nothing. Because I value having a variety of viewpoints, I consider my time in jail, while not enjoyable, to have been valuable. I was able to go back and use the experience as a basis for more research into the practical application of the law, which I integrated into my presentations.
My belief in looking at situations from multiple perspectives is why I am spending this next year working for a management consulting company advising upper level management clients. My eventual goal is to become a lawyer who specializes in union-side labor law. I hope that my consulting job will help give me a perspective that many other labor lawyers do not have. Much like my short stint in South Africa’s jail system allowed me to see the law from those who it protects’ perspective in addition to those who wrote the laws, this consulting job will allow me to see situations from management’s perspective not just the unions’ side. My hope is that this will allow me to become a more effective lawyer and mediator, who will be able to look at cases in context and from different viewpoints.