Seven Pillars of Justice 1997
SEVEN PILLARS OF JUSTICE
Seven Pillars of Justice is a work of art made by Willem Boshoff as commissioned by the Law
Faculty of the Rand Afrikaans University. It was presented to Professor Frans Malan on 27
June 1997 as a token of appreciation for services rendered over a period of 27 years and in
celebration of his appointment as judge on 1 July 1997.
Frans Malan and Willem Boshoff planned together on the idea supporting the work. The
administration of justice and a contemplation of the facts of a case and the legal rules are
linked to a sensibility obtained by a testing and fiting, much like the one used in piecing
together the segments of a broken puzzle. The well-known Seven Pillars of Wisdom of Sir
Lawrence of Arabia served as point of departure. Proverbs 9:1 mentions seven such pillars
without naming them specifically. For the work, seven pillars that join together into a
singular solid block were sculpted and each piece was linked to with a specific judicial
maxim as identified by Frans Malan.
ARS BONI ET AEQUI
SUUM CUIQUE TRIBUERE
PACTA SUNT SERVANDA
BONA FIDES
AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM
SUMMUM IUS SUMMA INIURIA
NEMO IUDEX IN SUA CAUSA
These maxims were written in Braille to convey the idea that justice is 'blind'. The
blind-folded Justitia judges the facts of a case without paying attention to the social
standing, race or personal attributes of the parties. To put Latin maxims in Braille is to
further deepen the conundrum of the law: ignotum per ignotius, the unknown is encircled by
the even less known.
Frans Malan wanted to illustrate the interaction between the hard and fast legal rules
(ius strictum) and the more yielding adaptability of our common law (ius honorarium). The
balance between these two aspects of the law is of cardinal importance with the one always
existing within the other. These two realities present two unique entanglements, - a labyrinth
within a labyrinth. The judicial concern with the 'flesh and blood' of human nature is
portrayed by a small, central puzzle in a red wood (Zambezi-teak Baikiaea plurijuga). In
contrast to this, the rigid, concrete structure of the law was made as an enclosing puzzle in
a black, stone-like wood (Leadwood Combretum Imberbe). Each of the seven pillars in the
labyrinth is thus composed of a hard exterior tempered by a soft nucleus.
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