One of the founding members of Lawyers for Human Rights, advocate Jules Browde, has died.

The 97-year-old, who died on Tuesday, had a career spanning over 50 years. He represented former African National Congress presidents Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, and other anti-apartheid activists.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies said the community had lost one of its most loved and respected members.

The board said Browde had served for 25 years as national president of the Habonim youth movement.

Browde was born in 1919. He obtained a BA from Wits University and enlisted in the Union Defence Force during World War II.

He met Mandela, a fellow law student, while furthering his studies at Wits after the war.

"The two men established a warm and enduring friendship, one interrupted by Mandela’s 27 years of imprisonment, but renewed shortly after his release. In 1996, Mandela appointed Browde to investigate irregularities in the appointment of certain public servants' posts during the transition to democracy period," the board said in a statement.

Browde, who was appointed as a Senior Counsel in 1969, was married for over 60 years to Professor Selma Browde.

He served as an acting judge in South Africa, and was a judge in the Appeal Courts of Swaziland and Lesotho. In July 2008, he received the Sydney and Felicia Kentridge Award for Service to Law in Southern Africa. Both he and Selma received the Helen Suzman Lifetime Achievement Award from the SA Jewish Report in 2011.