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Advocate and Judicial Services Commission spokesman Dumisa Ntsebeza. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko
Durban – Advocate and Judicial Service Commission (JSC) spokesman Dumisa Ntsebeza launched a scathing attack on the government for its failure to employ the services of black advocates, saying this was driving some out of the profession.
Ntsebeza said that from now on there should be a policy stating that no white advocate should be briefed by the government if they did not have a junior assisting them who was either black, Indian or coloured. He said the government used the services of mainly white law firms and advocates like David Unterhalter SC and Jeremy Gauntlett SC, who were made out to be “superhuman”.
Gauntlett was recently ignored again by the JSC when he was a candidate for a position in the Constitutional Court.
Ntsebeza said on Thursday that there were many female and black advocates who had left the profession because of a lack of briefs from the state, which was the biggest consumer of legal services in the country.
Ntsebeza was commenting on a written parliamentary reply from Justice Minister Jeff Radebe, who said his department was well on its way to “fast-tracking” the appointment of black and female justices to the Bench, and that 32 women had already been selected.
Radebe’s remarks followed damning reports that, as of October last year, only 28 percent of judicial officers nationally, were women.
Radebe was responding to Cope MP Nick Koornhof on whether his department had put in place a programme since 1994 to fast-track the advancement of black justices in the judiciary without causing “friction” with other race and gender groups. “I wish to inform (Koornhof) that, yes, the programme aimed at accelerating the appointment of women judges, has been developed to advance the transformation of the judiciary.
“My predecessor, Mrs Brigitte Mabandla, initiated and sponsored a programme to fast-track the appointment of women judges which was implemented by former Chief Justice Pius Langa and heads of courts,” said Radebe.
He said that some of the 32 women who had followed this programme were subsequently appointed to the Bench.
Ntsebeza said he wasn’t aware of Radebe’s figures.
He said the remedy did not lie “in artificial attempts like taking women all over the place and putting them in a judicial school of training or whatever”, but in offering them work.
Many female advocates left the profession “because they don’t get work, and if you do not get work, you cannot pay Bar dues, you cannot rent chambers and therefore you cannot be kept on the Bar”.
Ntsebeza said that government departments, provincial governments, parastatals and municipalities were the largest consumers of legal services.
“Now look at just one case, the e-toll case, how many black practitioners were there? In the North Gauteng High Court when the e-toll thing was there, who were briefed?” he asked. Government departments were consistently sidelining black senior counsels, he said.
On Gauntlett and Unterhalter, who represented the government in the e-tolls case, Ntsebeza said: “These guys have been made to appear to be superhuman.”
“It’s going to be our policy, starting from now, that no white is going to be briefed if he or she does not have a junior who is African, Indian or coloured,” said Ntsebeza.
Radebe said there was a programme regarding the allocation of 65 percent of state legal briefs to “previously disadvantaged legal practitioners”, in line with a constitutional imperative in Section 174(2), which called for the need for the judiciary to reflect the racial and gender composition of the country. “I am not aware of any racial or gender-based frictions that arise from the mere compliance with this constitutional injunction,” said Radebe.
Responding to Ntsebeza’s claims on Thursday, Gauntlett said the basis for Ntsebeza’s unhappiness was the fact that he hadn’t received any commercial or government briefs in years.
“It’s not the first time Mr Ntsebeza has made this complaint. It’s rather unfortunate that he wants to deal with his personal difficulties in this way,” said Gauntlett.
Political Bureau
