Justice Minister Jeff Radebe on Monday unveiled an initiative to transform state legal services.
“(This was done) to have one set of norms and standards of the legal profession,” he said in Joburg at a briefing on the transformation of the justice system.
The new policies aimed to address the need for efficient, co-ordinated legal services, and to promote the values and obligations arising from the Constitution.
Radebe said women and previously disadvantaged individuals were being overlooked within the profession.
He said while the state was a large consumer of legal services in the country, state legal services were hampered by a lack of a comprehensive set of rules governing how litigation services are dispensed, acquired, managed, and monitored.
“It was evident that the cake was not shared,” he said.
The goal of the policies was a transformed, integrated, professional, cost-effective, and highly-skilled state legal service.
A head of state legal services would be appointed as a matter of urgency, Radebe said.
When asked why this what being implemented now, Radebe said he had been in office since 2009 and that “there has been an outcry”.
“The public sector must come to the party. I am confident that it can be implemented,” Radebe said. – Sapa