Hilary Squires

Hilary Gwyn Squires (1933 - 2019) was a retired South African judge and barrister, who was brought in to preside over the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial in Durban, South Africa, so as not to tie up legal proceedings elsewhere while the trial proceeded.

Squires was born in South Africa in 1933 and was educated at Rhodes Preparatory School near Matopos in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Diocesan College in Cape Town,[1] before attending the University of Cape Town, where he met his wife, Irene Coralie Hopley.[2] He left South Africa in 1956, returning to Southern Rhodesia where he first practised in Bulawayo, then in Salisbury. He was elected to the House of Assembly as an MP for Salisbury Central in December 1971.[3] This was in a by-election, in which he stood unopposed.[4] He was first appointed Minister of Justice, Law and Order by Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, later becoming Minister of Defence and Combined Operation, before being appointed a judge of the High Court.[5] After the Lancaster House Agreement and the fall of the white minority government, Squires returned to South Africa to practise law and was appointed to the bench in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Squires was accused by supporters of Schabir Shaik and then-Deputy President Jacob Zuma of being racist, because of his Rhodesian background, and the fact that he was a white judge who served under the apartheid regime.[6] However, the South African Human Rights Commission defended Squires.[7]

He died of heart failure on 22 July 2019.[8]

References

1. Sub-Saharan Africa Report. Foreign Broadcast Information Service. 1979. p. 74.
2. Burrows, Edmund H. (1988). Overberg Origins: The English-speaking Swellendam Families. E.H. Burrows. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-620-11654-1.
3. Translations on Sub-Saharan Africa. United States: Joint Publications Research Service. 1978. p. 108.
4. Ministry of Internal Affairs (1972). Report of the Secretary for Internal Affairs. Southern Rhodesia: Government Printer. p. 6.
5. Focus on Political Repression in Southern Africa, Volume 3, Issues 1-49, page 50
6. Ryan, Myrtle (19 June 2005). "Squires 'highly regarded by all judges'". IOL News. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
7. Peta, Basildon (9 June 2005). "Corruption sentence seals fate of Mbeki deputy". The Independent. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
8. Naidoo, Mervyn (28 July 2019). "'Gentleman of the bench' Judge Hilary Squires dies". Independent Online. Retrieved 29 July 2019.

Preceded by Desmond Lardner-Burke	Minister of Justice and Law and Order 1976-78	Succeeded by Co-Ministry established
Preceded by Single ministry	Co-Minister of Justice, Law and Order, and Public Service 1978-79 With: Byron Hove, 1978 Francis Zindoga, 1978-79	Succeeded by Chris Andersen Francis Zindoga