Johan van Zyl Steyn, Baron Steyn, PC (15 August 1932 – 28 November 2017) was a South African-British judge, until September 2005 a Law Lord. He sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher. Early life and education Steyn was born in Stellenbosch in the Union of South Africa, the son of Janet Lacey Blignaut and Izak van Zyl Steyn, a professor of law at the University of Stellenbosch. His father died before he turned three years old and he subsequently were sent to live with his paternal grandparents. He received his schooling at the Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck in Cape Town where he matriculated in 1950. He studied law at the University of Stellenbosch before reading Law as a Rhodes Scholar at University College, Oxford. Career He was called to the Bar in South Africa in 1958 and appointed a Senior Counsel of the Supreme Court of South Africa in 1970. As a result of his opposition to apartheid in his native South Africa, he settled in the UK in 1973, joining the English Bar and building a distinguished international commercial law practice. He married Susan Heard (née Lewis) in 1977, having two sons and two daughters from a previous marriage to Jean Pollard. He had eight grandchildren (from his first marriage) and three stepgrandchildren (from his second marriage). His daughter Dame Karen Steyn was appointed a High Court judge in 2019. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1979 and was appointed a High Court Judge in 1985, receiving the customary knighthood, a surprise appointment by the then Conservative Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham. He served as presiding judge of the Northern Circuit from 1989 to 1991 and was appointed Lord Justice of Appeal in 1992. On 11 January 1995 he was elevated to a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and was created a life peer as Baron Steyn, of Swafield in the County of Norfolk. As a Law Lord he achieved prominence for his liberal views and espousal of human rights. He was a fierce critic of Augusto Pinochet's claim to stand immune from prosecution. His record of open criticism of Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay led to pressure from the UK government that he make himself unavailable for the hearing on the indefinite detention of suspects under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 that began on 4 October 2004. The decision in the latter case caused