Dr Paul Davis is so much more than a retired medical doctor with a passion for human rights and justice. Davis pioneered private medical rescue services in southern Africa by introducing a public-private partnership model. He also championed frontline paramedic response systems. Two of what he considers his greatest achievements are directing a major initiative to research, diagnose, and treat tuberculosis and HIV in South Africa via the Aurum Institute, and developing strategies and programmes to try to prevent and treat torture in South Africa prior to 1994. He also contributed to specialist medical training in the private sector through his work with the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre, of which he is a board member. In the past year, he has proposed two projects to the Government of National Unity that could lead to rapid improvement in healthcare delivery in South Africa. “Human rights are at my core,” said Davis, a Parktown Boys High School alumnus. “Apartheid, with its brutal cruelty, became my first target. I focused on fighting detention without trial and the systematic torture of people. As the old regime crumbled before 1994, I founded Medical Rescue International, combining privatesector emergency medical service resources to support the failing public health system.” Medical Rescue International, founded in 1991, was Africa’s first private emergency air and ground ambulance. It offered a national, regional, and international air ambulance service with supplementary ground emergency response vehicles and staff. This organisation pioneered the role of paramedics as frontline emergency providers. It also improved access for people in emergency situations to high levels of care in the country and the sub-Saharan region. Among his numerous achievements over his 80 years was setting up the Aurum Institute, which as a policy-informing research institute advanced knowledge and the ability to help those with tuberculosis and HIV. As the organisation’s chairperson, Davis is proud that the Aurum Institute recently founded the Dr Paul Davis Academic Excellence Scholarships for a Master’s and a Doctorate degree in his honour. Holding a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and being involved with the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre for many years, one of Davis’s biggest challenges was giving up his medical practice to concentrate on Medical Rescue International and then being threatened with incarceration for refusing to comply with an order to hand over some patient records. Davis speaks of a life-changing moment that happened when he was a conscript in the South African Air Force. “I was ordered in an emergency drill to round up at gunpoint the kitchen staff who prepared and served our food to lie face down on a field, guns pointed at them. It marked me – and I suppose them – forever.” And like his clear ideas of right and wrong, he believes medicine chose him as much as he chose it. “It gave me the privilege of understanding people in their most vulnerable moments. In hindsight, when you immerse yourself in the human condition, the cause, and your role in it will reveal themselves, just don’t ignore it,” said Davis, an outdoors, cycling, and photography enthusiast. Having thrived in his career, his advice to any up-and-coming doctor is, “Medicine offers unlimited personal fulfilment. Put your heart and soul into it, and be assured that you will find yourself in it.” When David Bilchitz was appointed acting judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa in February 2024, he hoped this would inspire other academics to work in the country’s highest court. This 49-year-old King David Linksfield alumnus was proud to become one of the first full-time academics to occupy such a position in the first court. It gave him a chance to make significant contributions to the development of the law in our country. Bilchitz has a history of contributing to the advancement of constitutional law with a particular focus on fundamental rights. He says he has made a significant impact in fields such as socioeconomic, business and human rights, the rights of non-human animals, and the understanding of proportionality. “My work has been used by the Constitutional Court as well as foreign courts. I’ve also built and developed the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law,” said Bilchitz, the director of the institute. In this capacity, he has mentored many young researchers. “I’ve also created many collaborations between academics in South Africa and other parts of the world,” he said. His academic work aside, he has been active in “changing certain features of our political community”. “I was key legal advisor to the LGBTQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning] community during the debates around same-sex marriage, and played a significant role in convincing our elected parliamentarians to move beyond a civil partnership model and make South Africa the fifth country in the world to recognise same-sex marriage,” he said. “I’ve also played a role in ending the culling of elephants in South Africa, as well as contributing to a shift in environmental policy to take into account the well-being of individual animals.” One of his most ambitious projects was the organisation of the 2022 Johannesburg-based World Congress of Constitutional Law, the main event of the International Association of Constitutional Law that takes place every four years. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, major travel restrictions, and at the height of loadshedding, running the congress turned out to be his greatest challenge. “We decided to persist with the event and continue to plan with all relevant protocols in place. In the end, 653 people registered for the event from 71 countries. Professionally, this involved managing a range of stakeholders as well as being prepared to take some risk. Personally, the uncertainty was difficult.” Bilchitz initiated the first blog on the African continent to engage every week with major issues of constitutional law and fundamental rights. “I regard the publication of my fulllength book in 2022 on fundamental rights and the legal obligations of business as a significant contribution to the field,” he said. Community work has always been very important for this piano player. “I have been vice-chairperson of my synagogue, and was one of the founders of Limmud in South Africa.” Absa Professional Excellence Award Nominees Professor David Bilchitz Dr Paul Davis
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