The Brian Currin Collection offers a small insight into the life of a person who, trained as a lawyer, dedicated his life and work for the vindication of human rights fearlessly and with integrity.

Currin, born 20 September 1950, studied law at the University of Stellenbosch. He practiced in Pretoria from 1977 to 1987, specializing in labour law and civil and human rights. Currin established a labour practice from which he represented mainly trade unions and workers in the politically stormy 1980s.

His experiences in these fields of law led him to establish the National Directorate of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) in 1987. He led the LHR until the end of 1994. He then worked as an independent consultant in two areas:

As a legal consultant he dealt with issues relating to constitutional law, human rights, labour and employment law;

Currin acted as a conflict resolution consultant in arbitration, mediation and negotiation for parties from labour, community and politics.

In 1989 Currin led a delegation of human rights lawyers to meet with the then exiled African National Congress's (ANC) Constitutional Team. During the Multi-Party negotiations (1991 to 1993) he made representations to the Technical Committee that had been tasked with drawing up the Bill of Rights.

In the field of conflict resolution Currin has mediated disputes both nationally and internationally. In addition to mediation interventions, Currin was instrumental in numerous transformation processes such as the establishment of the Broad Transformation Forum at the University of South Africa (UNISA), the Greater Pretoria Metropolitan Negotiating Forum, the Transformation of Student Governance at the University of Pretoria (UP) as well as servicing the following government departments: Education, Environmental Affairs, Office of the Deputy President, Safety and Security and Foreign Affairs.

The records accumulations that resulted from these particular areas of work do not form part of this Collection, but are in the custody of the archives and registries of the individual organisations for which Currin had undertaken the interventions.

While the national conflict resolution interventions often went hand in hand with transformation processes, the international interventions, to wit in Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Israel, were oftentimes purely attempts at conflict resolution, mediation or acting in advisory capacities.

Interventions in Northern Ireland form the main part of Currin's international engagement. Indeed he 'commutes' between South Africa and Northern Ireland to this end. Work in Northern Ireland includes:

Acting as the Chairperson since 1998 of one of the Commissions of the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement (GFA) which represents the British and Northern Ireland governments

Mediation of the Drumcree/Orange Order standoff in 2000 and 2001

Appointment as Chairperson of the Sentence Review Commissioners by the British Government in terms of the Northern Ireland (Sentences Act) of 1998.

This body provides for the early release of political prisoners.

While the actual records accumulations generated by these activities reside with the organisation that created the records, there are references in this Collection to many of these activities.

Currin was highly sought after for his expertise and engagement in the processes of conflict resolution and transformation. As his records testify, he was requested to deliver presentations, or act as an expert advisor in these broader fields in the Scandinavian countries, Eastern Europe as well as in North America, always part of the transnational community involved in transitional justice and human rights

With regard to the release and representation of political prisoners in South Africa, Currin has been involved in the following initiatives:

From 1990 to 1991 he headed the Political Prisoners Release Programme that acted in terms of an agreement concluded to that end by the Apartheid government and the ANC

Currin was both a Trustee and Board member of the South African Legal Defence Fund which funded and represented anti-Apartheid activists in the political trials of the early 1990s

From 1993 to 1995 Currin was the Chairperson of the Department of Justice Advisory Committee on Amnesty and Indemnity for Political Prisoners. He was appointed by Cabinet to make recommendations on amnesty and indemnity to prepare the way for the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

While still the National Director of the LHR (in 1993), Currin challenged the mass destruction of state records ordered by Johan Mostert, Head of the former Security Secretariat. Currin took the Apartheid State President, the Minister of National Education (the then State Archives Service SAS, now National Archives, was an office within the National Education Ministry), the Director of Archives and the Director-General of National Intelligence Services (NIS) to the former Supreme Court to argue that state records, even when 'classified' fall within the ambit of the current Archives Act, which provides for conditions for destruction or, to employ the technical term, its 'disposal'. Currin's was a Pyrrhic victory at best.

There are references to this court challenge in Currin Collection. A brief discussion of this intervention can be found in the Final Report of the TRC: Volume 1 Chapter 8: 'The Destruction of Records'. Citation details of the court case are: Case No. 19304/93, Supreme Court of South Africa, Transvaal Provincial Division.

In 2003 Currin was made Director of Diversity and Transformation Solutions, a BEE company that operates in the fields of dispute management, management consulting and transformation facilitation. However, Currin still operates internationally as well.

While the Brian Currin Collection is a private collection, the records do give substantial insight into the professional life of the donor. As a private collection it is incomplete in the sense that a number of items that were regarded as being too personal for the public domain were removed from the Collection. Some items were faxed transmissions and had faded to the point of being illegible.

These documents were disposed of, while those that had maintained a certain degree of legibility have been photocopied and form part of the collection. This was done in collaboration with Currin himself.

The processor of this Collection was given several lever arch files of documents. After a number of bouts of sorting, the records were divided into three discrete groups:

Personal letters, which provide insight into personal and working relationships with individuals and organisations

Diary files that covers events over a period of 7 years, from 1987 to 1993

Subject files including topics such as: Political prisoners and Indemnity

The records are paper-based records and comprise correspondence, diary entries, invitations to events, programmes of conferences and the like, newspaper clippings and cards. However, an audio cassette entitled: 'Diakonia Breakfast Briefing 4/8/94. Brian Currin on the Truth Commission,' forms part of an otherwise entirely paper-based collection. [Ethel appears to have misplaces this cassette as it is not in the boxes.]

As the largest part of the collection comprises 'diary files' consisting of multiple types of documents - traditional diary entries, letters, newspaper articles, drafts of addresses and press statements - the methodology employed was to arrange and classify the records/records accumulations strictly chronologically - but taking into account how the donor had arranged his documents in the lever arch files.

ACCORD African Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes -

ACLU American Civil Liberties Union -

AIUSA Amnesty International USA -

ANC African National Congress -

ARMSCOR Armaments Corporation of South Africa -

CCMA Commission for Mediation and Arbitration -

CIDSE Cooperation Internationale pour le Developpement et la Solidarit -

CODESA Convention for a Democratic South Africa -

COMSA Commonwealth Observer Mission to South Africa -

CRIMSA Criminological Society of Southern Africa -

EAC Employee Advisory Centre -

FOYSA Four Outstanding Young South Africans Award -

GFA Good Friday Agreement -

IDDA Institute for Democracy and Development in Africa -

IRA Irish Republican Army -

JMC Joint Management Committee -

LHR Lawyers for Human Rights -

MEC Member of the Executive Council -

NDA National Development Agency -

NEHAWU National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union -

NGO Non - governmental organisation

NI Northern Ireland -

NIACRO Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders -

NOVIB Nederlandse Organisatie voor Internationale Bijstand (Also: Oxfam - Netherlands)

SACBC Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference -

SACCON South African Constitutional Consultants -

SADF South African Defence Force -

SADTU South African Democratic Teachers' Union -

SAHA South African History Archive -

SAHWCO South African Health Workers' Congress -

SAIRR South Africa Institute of Race Relations -

SAP South African Police -

SRC Sentence Review Commission -

TEC Transitional Executive Council -

TNDT Transitional national Development Trust -

UCIP Catholic Union of the Press -

UDF United Democratic Front -

UN United Nations -

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation -

UNISA University of South Africa -

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