[ Home ] [ Speeches & statements ]

16 September 2006

Programme Director
Chairperson of the Gauteng Law Council, Ms Mphahlele
Distinguished guests
Members of the Council
Ladies and gentlemen

Thank you for the kind introduction Ms Mphahlele. It is a pleasure and an honour to address you this morning. I want to thank the Law Council for this kind invitation to join you here today on this important day on the Law Council’s annual calendar. I also want to thank you on behalf of Minister Mabandla that so many of you, stakeholders in the legal profession, responded positively to our invitation to play an active role in the process of developing a Legal Services Charter. The response from all the stakeholders and the manner in which the draft charter was received and engaged with were pleasantly overwhelming. The Indaba made significant progress with the development of a charter for the legal services sector and the consensus was that the charter is overdue.

Ladies and gentlemen

The keen embrace of the process of developing a charter for the legal services sector is recognition that while encouraging strides have been made in transforming the legal services sector, the extent to which the majority of the citizens participate meaningfully in our legal sector still remains far too limited. As government, particularly, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, we firmly believe that a systemically transformed, strong, vibrant, economically sustainable and independent legal profession is a fundamental component of our respected democracy. Substantive transformation therefore means more than merely admitting more black and women legal practitioners.

Clearly, merely opening the doors for all the people of this country to the existing system is not sufficient. At the Indaba there was consensus that the legal services sector requires an innovative and comprehensive plan to ensure that the legal profession is completely restructured. To support that innovative and comprehensive plan, we need to change the nature of legal practice to allow many young graduates, especially black women to enter and stay in the field. We therefore need the law societies to adopt strategies to make their institutions more welcoming to new practitioners and to encourage those who have entered the profession to stay.

It is our belief that, as in a number of other sectors of our society, it is necessary to introduce a coherent and focused strategy for transformation and broad-based black economic empowerment charter in this sector. This, in my mind, is therefore a necessary and noble cause worthy of our full participation. As we deliberate about the draft charter, perhaps we need to pay attention to an advice by the late former Chief Justice Ismael Mohamed who remarked observed that: "This pervasive and continuing legacy of racial inequality is potentially capable of seriously impairing the fulfilment of our vision to build a single and united South Africa which is morally just, politically stable and economically vigorous. It is a legacy which therefore needs urgently to be addressed and reversed.

I therefore firmly believe that, as in a number of other sectors of our society, it is necessary to introduce a coherent and focused strategy for broad-based black economic empowerment charter in this sector in order to reverse the stubborn legacy of inequality. This Indaba provided us with an opportunity to engage, understand and contribute to equity and empowerment means in the context of the legal sector. The follow-up provincial visits by members of the steering committee are intended to ensure that the practitioners who could not attend the Indaba have another change to interact with the draft charter so that at the end of the process, we have a Charter that is a product of inputs by the majority of practitioners and other stakeholders.

We therefore hope that the provincial workshops will provide all of us with valuable insight into issues and perspectives from the various role players that will be impacted upon by the development of such a legal services charter. Some of the resolutions of the Indaba were that written inputs should be made to enhance the draft Legal Services Charter and that bilateral and workshops should be considered between the Ministry and key stakeholders within the legal profession and the legal services sector.

The Legal Services Charter speaks to the need to focus on historically disadvantaged individuals and previously marginalised groups and communities in order to free their potential so that they can participate and contribute to the building of a nation on the move to prosperity. In a nutshell, the purpose of the charter is to facilitate transformation of the legal profession to ensure greater access to justice for all and to develop strategies for the creation of socio-economic opportunities that will lead to a better life for all the citizens of this country.

Naturally, the legal profession and the legal services sector should be in the forefront of this particular renaissance. Being at the forefront means it is our out duty, all of us, to ignite a vigorous campaign to lure back women, especially black women, into the legal profession. It is quite clear that the majority of the female graduates seem to leave the profession in disillusionment. The situation seems to be exacerbated by established briefing patterns and networks of legal practitioners that mostly exclude black and female legal practitioners.

I must admit that government departments and parastatals are also not without blame in these un-empowering briefing patterns and networks. Consequently many black and women legal practitioners are leaving the sector to the detriment of us all. The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, primarily and government in general, are already working hard to overhaul the patterns of systematic inequality that I have already referred to. We recognise that the various tiers of government have considerable influence that could empower black and women legal practitioners. We are therefore utilising our briefing patterns as an empowerment tool for previously disadvantaged legal practitioners. Preference is given to persons from previously disadvantaged groups whenever advocates or attorneys in the private sector are briefed.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In conclusion, from the first exploratory meeting convened by Minister Mabandla back in December 2004, we have urged the legal practitioners to take the lead in the transformation and the development of a charter for the sector. This is an undertaking that we are still committed to. It is for this reason, contrary to some claims, that we decided to embark on an exhaustive consultative process. This process has been on-going since December 2004. From the end of September until the middle of December, the Steering Committee, predominantly made up of independent legal practitioners, will be visiting all the provinces for consultative workshops on the draft charter.

The final charter, which will present to Cabinet, will therefore be a product of an intense consultative process and dialogue with all the stakeholders in the legal services sector. I believe that Law Societies and Legal Practitioners' Associations, such as the Gauteng Law Council, have a key role to play in the development of a Legal Services Charter.

We need your organisations to be more proactive in changing the plight of the disadvantaged legal practitioners. As Minister Mabandla said at the Sandton Indaba last month, "the Charter process should inspire us to proceed with determination towards the transformation of the legal services sector for the good of all our people. The process will not only enrich the transformation process of the sector, but will be good for the whole country.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Justice and Constitutional Development
16 September 2006
Source: Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (http:// www.doj.gov.za)