Oliver Deneys Schreiner MC KC (29 December 1890 – 27 July 1980), was a judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa.
His studies were interrupted by the First World War: he was commissioned into the British Army, and served with the Northamptonshire Regiment and the South Wales Borderers.
[3] He was called to the Transvaal bar in 1920 and set up a practice in Johannesburg, dealing primarily in commercial arbitration, white collar crime and being recognised as a specialist in procedure.
He also presided over the special court which tried Robey Leibbrandt and others for high treason; the judgment ran to 70,000 words and took seven hours to be delivered.
On the first occasion he was superseded by Henry Allan Fagan, who accepted the appointment with reluctance; although it was obvious to both that Schreiner was being punished by the government for his role in the coloured vote crisis.
[1] Politically, Ellison Kahn classifies Schreiner as a traditional Cape liberal: he opposed racism, and in old age refused to sit on whites-only bus seats.
In 1970, he refused to be renominated as President of the Cripple Care Association of the Transvaal because its constitution had been amended to restrict membership to whites only.
After his retirement he served on the University of the Witwatersrand Council and as president of the South African Institute of Race Relations.