Nicholas Stadlen, who has died of mesothelioma aged 73, rose to the head of his career as a industrial lawyer and excessive courtroom choose earlier than retiring early from the bench in 2013. Then he opened a brand new chapter by interviewing 5 survivors from amongst Nelson Mandela’s co-defendants and authorized crew on the Rivonia trial of 1963-64 for a documentary movie, Life is Great: Mandela’s Unsung Heroes.
Nick was in awe of Mandela and the seven individuals who had been convicted of making an attempt to overthrow the state by violent means and given life sentences; and of the authorized crew led by the barrister and underground activist Bram Fischer, for his or her selflessness and braveness in being ready to sacrifice their lives for the higher good.
He wished their values to be higher recognized world wide however specifically amongst younger folks in South Africa, to make sure that their imaginative and prescient is saved alive and that the nation’s hard-won democracy endures.
Nick was by likelihood on a go to to Cape City in 2013 when Mandela died. He learn an article about Denis Goldberg, the one white individual within the group convicted alongside Mandela, and spent a day at Goldberg’s dwelling on the mountain slopes of Hout Bay, Cape City. “My life modified that day,” he stated.
He conceived, directed, scripted and produced Life Is Great, during which his interviews with many concerned within the trial, together with Goldberg, two different defendants, Ahmed Kathrada and Andrew Mlangeni, and two of the attorneys, George Bizos and Joel Joffe, had been interspersed with archive footage.
Premiered on the Encounters worldwide movie pageant in Cape City in 2018, it gained greatest worldwide movie. It was screened on UK TV in the identical 12 months. Nick later established a charity with the intention of getting his movie proven at 6,000 state colleges in South Africa.
In feeding his new ardour, he deployed the identical strategies of forensic analysis and persuasion that had made him one of many main industrial attorneys of his period. Virtually 1 / 4 of his 30 years as a barrister was spent on the BCCI case, during which he represented the Financial institution of England in opposition to the liquidators of the collapsed Financial institution of Credit score and Commerce Worldwide.
Nick’s 119-day opening speech within the epic 256-day civil case nonetheless stands because the longest courtroom deal with in British authorized historical past.
One of many juniors in that case, Ben Valentin, described Nick as “one of the vital persuasive, fearless and trendy advocates of his technology”, who dealt with primarily very giant industrial disputes however was ready to tackle circumstances exterior his specialised area.
Nick was first instructed within the BCCI case in 1991 and the litigation passed off over 13 years from 1993. The case generated three appeals to the Home of Lords. Nick stood as much as make his opening deal with in July 2004. By the point he concluded in Could 2005, 9 months later, the BCCI case was in tatters.
The liquidators not solely misplaced their declare for £1bn in compensation however needed to pay the Financial institution of England’s prices of about £75m in addition to their very own prices. Valentin stated Nick’s persuasiveness as an advocate was based mostly on “meticulous preparation and testing of the strengths and weaknesses of his submissions” and his “masterfully forensic” cross-examination of the opposite facet, which left no place for witnesses to cover.
Nick was born in Hampstead, north London, to Viennese mother and father who married within the UK after fleeing the Nazi occupation of Austria. His father, Peter Stadlen, had been a live performance pianist in Austria and have become a music critic in London. His mom, Hedi (nee Simon), was a political activist, thinker and musicologist. Nick was educated at St Paul’s college, the place he met his future spouse, Frances Howarth, after which studied classics at Trinity School, Cambridge.
He already had a robust sense of justice. When Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 Nick was on a niche 12 months within the US. He caught a bus to the scene after which hitched a journey to the funeral in Atlanta. The expertise was a formative one.
Nick was referred to as to the bar in 1976 and practised as a barrister from Fountain Courtroom chambers within the Temple from 1977 till 2007. He was appointed QC in 1991 and have become a excessive courtroom choose (and was knighted) in 2007.
Earlier than changing into a choose, he took a break to interview a sequence of distinguished world figures, together with the previous South African president FW de Klerk, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres and the Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, for the Guardian.
Out of the courtroom Nick was heat, form and inclusive with an immense respect for folks from all walks of life. He had a rare recall and was a fantastic storyteller, however was additionally a very good listener.
Nick was engaged on a movie concerning the murdered black consciousness chief Steve Biko and writing a e book on Fischer when his sickness took over.
He’s survived by Frances, whom he married in 1972, their sons, Matthew, William and Tommy, and grandchildren, Jude, Skye, Wilfred and Marlon, and his brother, Godfrey.
