Bizos was the son of Antonios "Antoni" Bizos, the mayor of the small village of Vasilitsi, south of Koroni and Kalamata on the Messenia peninsula of the Peloponnese, Greece.[3] He was born on 14 November 1927, although this was erroneously recorded on his South African identity documents as 1928, owing to his father's declaration to the authorities upon arrival in Egypt.[4]
In May 1941 at the age of thirteen, Bizos and his father helped seven New Zealand Army soldiers (Don Gladding, Mick Karup, Peter Martin, John Lewis and three others) who were hiding in the hills to escape the German-occupied Greek mainland for Crete. The 9 set out to sea at night, with only a cheap compass and a map torn from an atlas, intending to escape to Crete. On the second day at sea, rough winds took the sail out of control and tore through its canvas. The men had to take turns to row, right through the night, until they managed to repair the sail. On the third day, they spotted a ship in the distance. They managed to attract the attention of the crew of what turned out to be the British destroyer, HMS Kimberley, on its way to the Battle of Crete. After the battle, the Kimberley dropped him and his father off at Alexandria, Egypt.[5]
As a refugee, Bizos was sent to the Union of South Africa and landed in Durban.[6] From there he went by train to Johannesburg, disembarking at the Braamfontein railway station.[7] At the time, the Ossewabrandwag, an Afrikaner group with Nazi sympathies, were demonstrating against the arrival of refugees. The Ossewabrandwag blamed Jan Smuts for bringing the vuilgoed (rubbish) of Europe to South Africa. The local Greek community helped integrate him into society.[8]
At the Rivonia Trial from 1963 to 1964, Bizos was part of the team that defended Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and Walter Sisulu. The accused were sentenced to life imprisonment, but spared the death penalty. Although it is sometimes said that he claims to have drafted Mandela's famous speech spoken at the trial, he says that his main contribution was to advise the use of the words "if needs be" before Mandela said that he was prepared to die. Bizos believed that this may have contributed to the avoidance of the death penalty, by having Mandela not appear to seek martyrdom.[6] This trial saw the arrival of a group of human rights lawyers – Joel Joffe, Harry Schwarz, Arthur Chaskalson and Harold Hanson.[10]
Bizos was council for the accused in at least 26 other prominent anti-apartheid trials and inquests. In 1969 he acted for the defence of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and 21 others on charges of contravening the Suppression of Communism Act and Unlawful Organisations Act.[11] Together with Arthur Chaskalson and Dennis Kuny, he also represented the NUSAS Five who were charged with furthering the aims of the African National Congress and communism in 1975.[11]
Bizos subsequently became a senior member of the Johannesburg Bar in 1978. He was a member of the National Council of Lawyers for Human Rights, which he helped found in 1979. He was Senior Counsel at the Legal Resources Centre in Johannesburg in the Constitutional Litigation Unit. He also served as a judge on Botswana's Court of Appeal from 1985 to 1993.[12]
Bizos became a member of the African National Congress' (ANC) Legal and Constitutional Committee in 1990,[12] and at Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) he served as advisor to the negotiating teams and participated in drawing up the Interim Constitution. He was involved in the drafting of legislation, and particularly the Truth and Reconciliation Bill and amendments to the Criminal Procedures Act, to bring it into line with Chapter 3 of the constitution, guaranteeing fundamental human rights to all citizens of South Africa.[13][14]
Bizos was retained as counsel at various inquests into the deaths of people in detention.[7] During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, he was the leader of the team that opposed applications for amnesty on behalf of the Biko, Hani,[8] Goniwe, Calata, Mkonto, Mhlauli, Slovo and Schoon families.[15]
Bizos was appointed by President Mandela to the Judicial Services Commission in 1994.[12] It was responsible for recommending candidates for appointment as judges, as well as proposing post-apartheid reforms to the judicial system. Bizos was the leader of the team for the South African Government to argue that the death penalty was unconstitutional,[16] and counsel for the National Assembly in the Certification of the Constitution by the Constitutional Court.[17] He later served as a legal advisor to Mandela in 2005, during a bitter legal dispute with the latter's former lawyer, Ismail Ayob.[18][19][20][21] He also represented the Chinese Association of South Africa in a case that ended in 2008 in which Chinese South Africans were granted 'previously disadvantaged' status, thus qualifying them for Black Economic Empowerment benefits.[22]
In 2017 Bizos appeared along with surviving defendants at the Rivonia Trial, Denis Goldberg, Andrew Mlangeni and Ahmed Kathrada, along with fellow defence lawyers Joel Joffe and Denis Kuny, in a documentary film entitled Life is Wonderful, directed by Sir Nicholas Stadlen,[23] which tells the story of the trial. The title reflects Goldberg's words to his mother at the end of the trial on hearing that he and his comrades had been spared the death sentence.[24][25][26][27]
In the 1970s Bizos helped start a Greek school, called SAHETI. It embraced Hellenism, yet was non-exclusionist, even during the heart of apartheid. It was here that people like Chris Hani's children were educated.[31]
Two of Mandela's daughters brought court action in 2013 to oust Bizos, ex-Housing Minister Tokyo Sexwale and lawyer Bally Chuene as directors of two of Mandela's firms. Bizos said that the daughters were trying to "get their hands on things that should not be sold". The case was delayed after the daughters' lawyer Ismail Ayob withdrew from the case.[32][33][34][35]
Bizos was married to Arethe Daflos, known as "Rita", who he met in 1948 when she was an art student. The couple had three sons. Rita died in 2017, shortly before her husband's 90th birthday.[36][10][12]
^ abAlcock, Sello S. (16 November 2008). "Birthday tea with Bizos". Mail & Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 September 2019. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
^ abcdefghijklmBizos, George (October 1989). "Memoirs of George Bizos"(PDF). The memoirs of George Bizos, with emphasis on his legal career, as related to Thomas Karis and Gail Gerhart in New York, October 1989. Aluka. Archived(PDF) from the original on 30 September 2019. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
^Moya, Fikile-Notsikelelo (5 August 2005). "Poor Ismail Ayob". Mail & Guardian Online. Archived from the original on 28 April 2006. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
^Gerhart, Gail M. (30 December 1990). "Trial by Color". The New York Times. p. 10. Archived from the original on 29 September 2019. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
Pal Ahluwalia; Stephen Atkinson; Peter Bishop; Pam Christie; Robert Hattam; Julie Matthews, eds. (2012). Reconciliation and Pedagogy. Routledge. p. 191. ISBN978-0415687218. George Bizos, a pre-eminent human rights lawyer who was part of the defence team in the Rivonia treason trial