Profile of the Late Abdulah Mohamed Omar

Minister of Transport (since June 1999)

Former minister of Justice (1994 - June 1999)

Member ANC, NEC

Member ANC, NWC

Dullah Omar has lived in Cape Town his entire life. Known as Dullah, a shortened form of Abdulah, Omar was was born in Observatory on 26 May 1934.

Omar matriculated from the Trafalgar High School in Cape Town, and went to study law at the University of Cape Town. He graduated with an LLB degree in 1957.

He was admitted as an attorney in 1960, and as an advocate of the Supreme Court in 1982. During practice both as an attorney and an advocate, he served deprived communities, involving civil and criminal defence work and handling housing, pass laws, labour and work related cases.

He acted as a defence lawyer for numerous prisoners serving sentences at Robben Island and elsewhere, and legal representative to a number of trade unions as well as civic and religious organisations. He was a defence lawyer in many political trials involving members of banned organisations such as the ANC, PAC and BCM charged with resistance activities against the apartheid regime.

Omar was Chairperson of the United Democratic Front (UDF) Western Cape Region in 1987 and 1988, and Vice-president from 1988 until the UDF's dissolution in 1991.

He was a national Vice-President and Western Cape regional President of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADEL), a trustee of the South African Legal Defence Fund, and a Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of South Africa.

He served as Director of the Community Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape until his appointment as South Africa's first Minister of Justice in a democratically-elected government in 1994.

He was elected to the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC) in 1991, and as Chairperson of the ANC in the Western Cape in 1996. He was a member of the constitutional committee of the Legal Department of the ANC from 1990 to 1994, and a member of the ANC negotiating team leading to the constitutional and political settlement in South Africa.

Omar served as Minister of Justice from 1994 to 1999, and was also the minister responsible for intelligence. He was the first member of cabinet to be appointed Acting President in the absence of both the President and the Deputy President.

He was appointed Minister of Transport in June 1999, after the country's second democratic elections.

Omar has been honoured with two Doctorates of Law, from the University of Fort Hare in 1993 and the University of Durban Westville in 1996.

He has also been honoured with awards in the USA, Chile and Germany for his contribution to the struggle for human rights in South Africa.

Source: ANC Website