Freedom Under Law was launched at a lunchtime gathering of some 200 journalists, academics, judges, legal practitioners, political leaders and interested members of the public at the Women’s Gaol on Constitution Hill on Friday 23 January 2009. Lord Steyn, a former Law Lord who chairs Freedom Under Law’s International Advisory Board, spoke of the opportunities to advance rights and constitutionalism of which the inauguration of President Obama the previous week offered hope. Freedom Under Law Board chair and former Constitutional Court judge Johann Kriegler then outlined Freedom Under Law’s objectives and its planned activities.