Berrangé married (7 March 1930) Yolande Viviane Brewer, née de Pierres (born 1900), who loved and supported him in all ways for 50 years until her death (1980).
After demobilisation (1919) he returned to South Africa and worked briefly for the Institute for Medical Research before going to the University of Cape Town from which he graduated (1924) with a law degree – BA LLB Berrangé was an immaculate dresser and had a penchant for high living and fast cars.
Berrangé joined the South African Communist Party of his own volition in about 1938, holding the opinion that it was an organisation which expressed in practice those economic and social theories which appealed to him.
Berrangé was an ordinary member attached to the Central Branch in Johannesburg, except for a period when he was on a committee dealing with Industrial Legislation and Trade Union Work.
After the Second World War, however, Berrangé would find himself increasingly involved in defending the human rights of those prosecuted by the Nationalist Government some of whose members had been supporters of the Nazis.
In 1946, whilst he was on holiday in Europe, Berrangé received a phone call from Bram Fischer asking him to return to South Africa to defend him and others on a charge of inciting the African Mine Workers' Strike.
The circumstances which led to the South African Treason Trial, the proceedings, and the conclusion some ten years later, all demonstrated Berrangé's personal qualities and professional skill.
In 1951 when the leaders of the Congress Movement developed a plan involving deliberate defiance of the apartheid laws, Berrangé was consulted on its legal implications.
[9]: 111 After the Defiance Campaign during which some 8,000 volunteers went to prison; in 1955 the Congress of the People organised a convention, attended by thousands of delegates, to present the Freedom Charter[11]: 61–5 that was essentially a call for a democratic South Africa in which "all shall enjoy equal human rights".
The accused represented a cross-section of South Africans from all walks of life and included Oliver Tambo, Chief Albert Luthuli (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize), Helen Joseph and Nelson Mandela.
He argued that the treason allegations amounted to a political plot comparable with the Inquisition and the Reichstag Fire Trial, and were an attempt to silence and outlaw the ideas held by the accused and the thousands whom they represented.
Berrangé then revealed that the statements had been made by persons such as former SA Prime Minister Malan, President Franklin Roosevelt, William Pitt, Heine, Luther, Voltaire, Milton and Jefferson and finally one written by Prof Murray himself in the 1930s!
Long before the trial began the name Vernon Berrangé struck fear into the hearts of police witnesses, because of his incomparable and merciless skill in exposing unreliable or dishonest evidence.
He continued to practise law intermittently, both in the Republic of South Africa and Swaziland, until his full retirement in 1966 and resignation from the Johannesburg Bar.
The proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission show that South African Government continued to keep Berrange under close surveillance whenever he visited the country.
[16]: 5 The accused included Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Raymond Mhlaba, Rusty Bernstein and Nelson Mandela, who had been arrested later upon release from jail.
[6]: 67 He accepted unhesitatingly despite risking ex-communication from the legal profession as he knew that the government was drafting legislation which would permit them to debar any "named" communist from practising law in South Africa.
As part of a crack-down following the Rivonia raid, in mid-August 1963 the police arrested Looksmart Khulile Ngudle, a regional leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
Berrangé's last political trial was defending his friend and colleague Bram Fischer, who along with 14 others had been charged in 1964 under the Suppression of Communism Act.
[8]: 331–61 In the event Fischer realised the futility of his case and whilst the trial was in progress skipped bail and went underground to continue the struggle against apartheid.