Cape Town - Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha will wield the transformation hammer
this week as he tackles an “untransformed” Cape Bar.
Masutha has met a number of professional bodies and will present a plan to “radically transform” a profession largely dominated by white males.
“We will be outlining our strategy to fast-track transformation in the (Cape) tomorrow (Monday) and it will start this week,” said Masutha’s spokesperson, Stephen Mahlangu.
Masutha met the Cape Bar Council in March and voiced concern about a list of advocates for promotion to senior counsel, also known as “silks”.
The Cape Bar’s figures show that the majority of silks are white men. Of the 95 silks, 86 are men and nine are women.
President Jacob Zuma sent the Cape Bar a notice to confirm 17 advocates had been promoted last week, in accordance with its recommendations.
Of the 17, three are coloureds and one Indian, but none are black Africans.
Advocates For Transformation (AFT) – an organisation of advocates within the Cape Bar – threw down the gauntlet on Sunday to the Cape Bar Council to “shape up or ship out”.
AFT provincial chairperson Gregory Papier cited the council’s “reluctance to change” the slow pace of transformation in the Western Cape legal fraternity.
“If the council cannot initiate transformation, then its membership must be transformed itself. After all these years, they still do not understand transformation and have shown a clear unwillingness to grapple with the issue,” Papier said.
A “dire lack of transformation” in the industry spurred advocate Pearl Mathibela, who is on the Cape Bar, to stage a month-long protest outside Parliament in April.
AFT, which has a membership of 63 advocates, echoed Mathibela’s sentiments, citing there were only 100 black State prosecutors out of 600 in the province.
Mathibela and AFT, along with Cape Town advocates Chumani Giyose, Msee Mlisana and Busisiwe Mthamzeli, then took up the cudgels on behalf of other black advocates on the Cape Bar, urging Masutha to address “transformation, inequitable briefing patterns and late payments”.
Twelve advocates of colour also boycotted a Cape Bar dinner last month, citing a lack of transformation.
Papier said: “The (17) names on that list were chosen by the Bar Council before being presented to the minister, but he asked why there were no black advocates on the list and demanded it be addressed.
“One has to understand the president merely rubber stamps the process. It is actually the Bar Council who decides on these candidates.”
Masutha had been in Cape Town in March to meet AFT, the Cape Bar Council and the Black Lawyers’ Association to propose they work together to achieve “real transformation”.
The organisations agreed to form a transformation committee within the Cape Bar of four advocates – Lihle Sidaki, Nazreen Bawa, Michelle Norton and Ncumisa Mayosi.
Sidaki said on Sunday none of the four were “mandated to comment”.
AFT, the Black Lawyers Association and the National Association of Democratic Lawyers have expressed their willingness to work with Masutha to achieve transformation within the Cape Bar.
Papier said AFT would consider adopting a similar approach as the Johannesburg Bar, which has warned senior counsel they could faced disciplinary action if black practitioners were not appointed as their juniors.
Nadel transformation task team member Mustaque Holland said: “Although the topic of transformation is often tabled and discussed, mere lip service has been paid to the blatant fact that there is no real transformation policy at the Cape Bar with regard to the transfer of skills.
“The recent intervention by the minister has given this issue a second wind, but unfortunately the sole purview is State-allocated work, which is far too narrow to address the imbalance.
“Without the Cape Bar putting a proper transformation policy in place that focuses on the private sector, as the Johannesburg Bar has sought to do, the skewed briefing patterns will continue.”
@carlo_petersen
Cape Times
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