Rights campaigner Felicia Kentridge dies

09 June 2015 - 13:43 By RDM News Wire

Felicia Kentridge, an advocate who co-founded the Legal Resources Centre in South Africa to campaign through the courts for human rights, died on Sunday surrounded by her family in London, the centre said. She was 85.She is survived by her husband, QC Sydney Kentridge, and four children, including artist William Kentridge."Felicia was a wonderful and remarkable person," the LRC said. "Her life was an inspiration and she was truly a force of nature."Lady Kentridge established the LRC in 1979 with fellow lawyers the late Arthur Chaskalson, former chief justice of the Constitutional Court, and Geoff Budlender.Born in 1930 and brought up in Johannesburg, she came from a family of lawyers. The LRC said her mother was the first female advocate in South Africa.In 1952, during her studies at Wits University, Felicia married Sydney Kentridge, who was already admitted at the Bar and later became known for being counsel for the defence in major South African political trials."In the 1970s, Felicia persuaded the Wits Law Faculty to set up a legal clinic, which has since offered free services to thousands of disenfranchised and poor black South Africans during and after apartheid," the LRC said...

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