Jiba, Mrwebi to appeal judgment

Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit head Lawrence Mrwebi and Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba. Pictures: Etienne Creux and Motshwari Mofokeng

Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit head Lawrence Mrwebi and Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba. Pictures: Etienne Creux and Motshwari Mofokeng

Published Jan 30, 2017

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Pretoria – The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, on Monday granted Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba and Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit head Lawrence Mrwebi leave to appeal against an earlier order that their names be struck from the roll of advocates.

The pair will now head to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein, where they will fight for their careers.

Judge Francis Legodi in September last year delivered a lengthy judgement in which he severely critisized the conduct of especially Jiba.

He also at the time made a number of damning findings against the pair, which had put an end to their careers as advocates.

Judge Wendy Huges at the time concurred with Judge Legodi on his findings that the pair were not fit and proper persons to serve as advocates.

Both Jiba and Mrwebi turned to the court to ask for leave to appeal against them being struck from the roll.

They advanced a number of reasons as to why they should be allowed to continue working as advocates.

Among others, they claimed that the court was too harsh on them by striking their names from the roll.

They also maintained that all the decisions they took which led to them being labelled as unfit to act as advocates, were taken in good faith under the NPA Act.

According to them they were simply executing their mandate and duties as public officials.

Judge Huges found that these were sufficient reasons for the SCA to have another look at the main judgement and the reasons advanced by the court at the time for them to have their names struck from the roll.

“In my view this would set the blurred lines straight with regard to the roles played as an admitted advocate in relation to section 7 (of the Admissions of Advocates Act),” Judge Huges said.

She found that the SCA may come to a different conclusion than this court.

But Judge Legodi was not as optimistic. He, in a separate judgement delivered on Monday, said if it was up to him, he would have dismissed the leave to appeal application.

“I do not think that that there are reasonable prospects of success on the factual findings made regarding the complaints leveled against both applicants…I am not convinced that the court of appeal will find that this court in its main judgement materially misdirected itself in fact or in law.”

Judge Legodi, however, concluded that because of the conflicting judgement, leave to appeal must be granted.

The initial judgement followed an application by the General Council of the Bar of South Africa (GCB), which mostly based its application on remarks made by judges regarding the conduct of the advocates during three high-profile and political cases.

These were in the litigation between the National Prosecuting Authority and Freedom Under Law regarding the decision to drop corruption charges against former spy boss Richard Mdluli, the so-called Jacob Zuma spy tapes, and their handling of the matter of KwaZulu-Natal Hawks boss Johan Booysen.

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