Hon House Chairperson, hon members I am afraid that I am not nearly as good as my colleague the hon Motshekga, drawing a huge amount of detail out of nothing at all, because there is not really a lot to be said about the Attorneys Amendment Bill. It is intended, or rather he managed to fool us all, that this Bill is intended as an interim measure that desires to address the most urgent challenges currently being experienced with regard to the outdated Attorneys Act of 1979, which will eventually be repealed in its entirety.
The aim of the Bill is to protect the public and the legal profession and provide interim relief pending the final enactment of the legal practice legislation, which will obviously take some time.
The Bill deals with various issues but, most importantly, it addresses the disparities in relation to attorneys and candidate attorneys and the training they received in the former Transvaal, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei, the TBVC, states. It arose principally as a result of court judgments relating to issues with imposing discipline in those areas where those law societies refused to co-operate.
The unification of the rules that govern the legal profession is a measure that is long overdue. The rules governing the profession in the TBVC region are not concurrent with those in the rest of the country and these so- called states ceased to exist a long time ago. The result is that attorneys and candidate attorneys there are distinctly disadvantaged, particularly with regard to training. After the enactment of this Bill the legal profession will be able to look forward to the same protection, education and disciplinary procedures as those in place in the rest of South Africa.
The Bill was prepared principally after it was initiated by the Law Society of the Northern Provinces, but the Law Society of South Africa, the umbrella body, supports the proposed amendments, which in essence address the difficulties being experienced with the regulatory functions. The main focus of the Bill is to restructure and rationalise areas of jurisdiction in the various law societies to provide regulatory measures and uniformity by terminating the continued existence of the TBVC law societies that are still in existence. After the enactment of this Bill all the other law societies will cease to exist and will reform under the Cape Law Society, the Law Society of the Free State, the Law Society of the Northern Provinces and the Law Society of the KwaZulu-Natal.
This Bill was discussed at some length by interest groups and all of them support this Bill as well as the legal profession in general. Bearing in mind that this is an interim measure, there is no reason to not support the Bill in its current form, and we do so. Thank you. [Applause.]