Born June 14, 1939 (72)
BA Cape Town
LLB Cape Town / Nominated by:
Emeritus Professor SJ Saunders
Emeritus Professor PI Folb
Professor DP Visser
Professor H Corder
Professor ER Kalula
Ms MG Burton
Candidate’s Statement:
If elected once again to the University Council, I shall work – as I have done during my present term of office - to ensure that UCT remains an outstanding teaching and research-led university which upholds the principles of academic freedom and critical scholarship. As I see it, this means working to maintain an environment that gives academics the freedom to grow and be creative, that is to say, an environment that is conducive to attracting and keeping scholars of the highest calibre. In this context, a critical issue is building the next generation of academics in order to accomplish our ambition to be a university that is an intellectual meeting point between South Africa, Africa and the world and one whose research improves that quality of life and addresses the challenges facing our society.
I believe that my experience as a judge in combination with my knowledge of UCT (havening been involved with UCT over many years in different capacities, e.g. as an Honorary Professor and as a member of Council (two terms)) enables me to make a meaningful contribution to the sound governance of UCT at Council level.
Abbreviated CV:
Profile
During 1960 to 1961 Ian Farlam worked as a judge’s clerk for REG Rosenow J and ME Theron J (then AJ) and DP de Villiers QC (then AJ). He joined the Department of Justice at the end of 1961 as a public prosecutor and after prosecuting in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court until the end of August 1962 he was transferred to the Attorney General’s office in Grahamstown and thereafter to the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court where he was acting as Senior Public Prosecutor when he was transferred back to Cape Town to the Attorney General’s office there at the end of April 1964.
For over 25 years, from February 1968 until the end of September 1993, he was a member of the Cape Bar. He was awarded silk in 1981. After acting for a term in 1988 as a judge in the Orange Free State Provincial Division, he acted for several terms as a judge in the Cape Provincial division until he received a permanent appointment from 1 October 1993. From December 1997 until the end of November 2000 he acted as a judge of appeal at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein and was permanently appointed to the SCA in December 2000. He served on the SCA until his retirement in June 2009. Since April 2010 he has been a member of the Court of Appeal in Lesotho.
While at the Bar, he had a wide practice, covering court and chamber work. Among his areas of interest in the law were banking law, shipping law and constitutional law.
He appeared in a number of cases in Namibia, before it became independent, for persons who were either prosecuted or detained under the security legislation.
Among the cases in which he appeared at the bar were S v Mpetha and others, which started in the CPD in 1981 and in respect of which a large number of decisions on various aspects of the criminal procedure and evidence were given, and S v Khumalo and Others 1991(4) SA 310 (A), a case which was the sequel to the murder of a municipal policemen in Upington in November 1985.
As a puisne judge in the Cape Provincial division he gave judgment in a number of cases which aroused a significant amount of public or a least professional interest. They included Ryland v Edros 1997(2) SA 690(C), on the enforceability of a Muslim marriage contract, S v Kampher 1997 (4) SA 460 (C), on the decriminalisation of sodomy, S v Motloutsi 1996(1) SA 584(C) on the admissibility of evidence obtained in breach of an accused person’s constitutional rights and Mainline Carriers (Pty) Ltd v Jaad Investments CC 1998 (2) SA 468 (C), on remedies for breach of contract. A selection of his most notable judgments in the Supreme Court of Appeal includes Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association v Price Waterhouse 2001 (4) SA 551 (SCA), a separate judgment (with Marais JA and Brand AJA), on the concept of causation in the law of contract; Fourie v Minister of Home Affairs 2005 (3) SA 429 (SCA), a separate concurring judgment on same-sex marriages that was upheld by the Constitutional Court; Road Accident Fund v Mtati 2005 (6) SA 215 (SCA), on claims for pre-natal injuries; Dendy v University of the Witwatersrand 2007 (5) SA 382 (SCA), on a claim for damages by a candidate who failed to be promoted to Professor; and National Director of Public Prosecutions v Zuma 2008 (1) SACR 258 (SCA), a minority judgment involving the validity of search warrants.
He has written a number of judgments on questions of shipping law, two of which have been reported in Lloyds’s reports. They include: MT Tigr, 1995 (4) SA 49 (C); [1996] 2 Lloyd’s 153: MV Heavy Metal, 1999 (3) SA 1083 (SCA); MV Silvergate, 1999 (4) SA 405 (SCA); The Merak S, 2002 (4) SA 273 (SCA); [2002] 2 Lloyd’s 287; MV Ivory Tirupati, 2003 (3) SA 104 (SCA); MT Argun, 2004 (1) SA 1 (SCA); MV Cape Courage Bulkship Union SA v Qannas Shipping Co Ltd and another 2010 (1) SA 53 (SCA);
He has served as Honorary Professor of Law, both at the University of Cape Town and the University of the Free State.
Judge Farlam has twice served on the Council of the University of Cape Town.
Offices Held, past & present
•Member, Council of the van Riebeeck Society
•Convener, Judicial Service Commission’s Sub-committee on Judicial Education, 1997 to 2007
•Chairperson, Judicial Committee and Magistrates Commission‘s committee to oversee the training of Judicial officers on the implementation of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000
•Chairperson, Standing Committee on Intellectual Property Law, Department of Trade and Industry
•Honorary Law Adviser, Church of the Province of Southern Africa, 1987 to present
•Chancellor, Metropolitical Diocese of Cape Town, 1987 to 2001
•First Provincial Chancellor, Metropolitical Diocese of Cape Town 2001 to present
- Chairperson of the UCT Naming of Buildings Committee, 2008-present
- Chairperson of UCT Council’s ad hoc Committee on Governance 2010 to present
While at the bar, he was involved (with Mr Justice Baker and the then Professor Erasmus) in editing the 7th edition of Jones and Buckle, The Civil Practice of the Magistrates’ Courts in South Africa (Juta, 1980) and, together with Advocate EW Hathaway he produced A Casebook on the South African Law of Contract (Juta1968).
He has also written reviews of Chaskalson et Al, Constitutional Law of South Africa, published in (1996) 12 SAJHR 673, Zimmermann and Visser, Southern Cross, published in (1997) 114 SALJ 247 and Reid and Zimmermann A History of Private Law in Scotland, published in (2002) 119 SALJ 884.
He contributed a chapter (with John Blackie) on ‘Enrichment by act of the party enriched’ in Zimmermann, Visser & Reid (eds) Mixed Legal Systems in Comparative Perspective: Property and Obligations in Scotland and South Africa (2004) 469.
He serves as a member of the editorial board of the South African Law Journal.