He practised law in South Africa from 1928 until his retirement in 1992 and was widely regarded as “pre-eminent among his generation of advocates” and “one of the country’s most formidable legal minds.”[2] In addition to a legal practice, he is best known for his defence of those prosecuted for their political beliefs and “as a man whose life and interests reflected a deep concern for human rights and civil liberty.”[2] He was the leader of the defence team in the famous South African Treason Trial of 1956 to 1961 in which the accused, including Nelson Mandela,[1] were all acquitted as well as numerous other cases in which he represented individuals adversely affected by the apartheid government's oppressive legislation.
[6] His father, Henry, had come with his siblings and parents in the 1890s from Pokroy, a small village in Lithuania and his mother, Andzia, née Sieradski, from Łódź in Poland.
[7] Following his graduation, he served in a firm of attorneys for two years as an “articled clerk” and was admitted to the Bar as an advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa in 1930.
In his position as leader of the Johannesburg Bar, he opposed several pieces of oppressive legislation enacted by the government, including the Suppression of Communism Act which led to the persecution and imprisonment of many, but his commercial practice flourished.
The case involved an area of some 10,000 miles of the West Coast of South-West Africa (now Namibia) and the question of the rights to prospect for diamonds between the high and low watermarks along the beaches.
Maisels is perhaps best known for his role as the leader of the defence team (that included Bram Fischer and Sydney Kentridge), in the South African Treason Trial in which 156 people of all races, including Chief Albert Luthuli, president of the African National Congress (ANC), Oliver Tambo, the ANC vice president and Nelson Mandela were arrested in December 1956 and charged with treason.
In the cross-examination, Maisels enumerated the multiple discriminatory laws that had been passed for decades against the non-whites of South Africa and became increasingly harsh and more pervasive following 1948 when the Nationalist Party government came to power.
In 1977 he served on a two-person commission of the Medical Association of South Africa to investigate the death in detention of Black consciousness leader Steve Biko.
Israeli Prime Ministers whom he hosted, or who enjoyed the hospitality of his home, included Menachem Begin (at the time a member of Israel's opposition party), Moshe Sharett, Yitzchak Rabin and Ben Gurion (following his retirement).