Shulamith Muller (née Movshowitz, December 1922 - July 1978) was a South African lawyer, communist, and anti-apartheid activist.[1] Muller was one of the attorneys for the 1956 Treason Trial.
Muller was born in Pretoria in December 1922 to a Jewish family.[1][2] Muller attended the University of Pretoria where she studied law and became an attorney in 1948.[1] In her practice, she worked with Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela, Arthur Chaskalson and George Bizos.[1] Muller allowed the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) to work secretly from her offices.[3]
Muller worked as Viola Hashe's counsel in 1956 and prevented her from being deported.[4] Muller also did appeals for Sophia Williams-De Bruyn.[5] Muller was also involved with the 1956 Treason Trial as one of the instructing attorneys, taking the case on when she was seven months pregnant.[1]
Muller was arrested during the post-Sharpeville Emergency and was jailed first at the Johannesburg Fort and later taken to the Pretoria Central Prison.[1] In prison, she helped others with legal assistance.[1] She was subject to bannings and harassment by the Special Branch so that she could no longer practice law effectively.[1] In 1962, she and her family fled to Swaziland.[1]
In August 1962, after she went to Swaziland, a gag order was imposed on her and 101 other South African activists, preventing the publishing of their spoken words and writings.[6] South Africa struck her from the Roll of Attorneys in August 1971.[1] She died in Swaziland in July 1978.[1]
After being struck from the list of attorneys in South Africa for more than 30 years, Muller was finally posthumously reinstated by the Johannesburg High Court in 2005.[7] Her son, Arnold, had petitioned for the reinstatement.[7]