House Chair, what does one do when an attorney acts unprofessionally and even unlawfully? Normally, one can lodge a complaint with a law society that should take action against that party, and can even have that attorney struck from the roll. However, what happens when a particular law society not only doesn't take action, but in fact instigates unprofessional behaviour, and aids and abets unprofessional attorneys in making untruthful denials, ignoring laws and court judgments?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who guards the guards? This is what the Supreme Court of Appeal, SCA, had to deal with, with regard to the Law Society of Bophuthatswana. The Law Society of the Northern Provinces had for years experienced difficulty in exercising its concurrent jurisdiction. There were separate pieces of legislation and there was a lack of proper disciplinary and regulatory control exercised by the Law Society of Bophuthatswana as highlighted by the Supreme Court of Appeal, which said:
It is bad enough for courts to deal with alleged unprofessional conduct of practitioners, but it is a sad day for the legal profession in particular and justice in general if a professional body acts unprofessionally by ignoring the clear law and judgments of competent courts, and by presenting spurious evidence.
In a separate judgment the Supreme Court of Appeal also said:
It is evident that the second respondent is engaged in an unbecoming turf war with the appellant that has led to unnecessary and protracted litigation. It ought to focus its attention on serving the interests of the public by properly regulating the conduct of its practitioners within its area of ... jurisdiction.
This led to Judge Navsa asking the then Minister whether this law society served a useful purpose. That is what resulted in this amendment.
So, while we as the ACDP support this amendment, which effectively dissolves those law societies, we do wish to express our concern that it took so long to deal with this ongoing problem, which was highlighted by the courts three years ago. Regrettably, the public has suffered as their legitimate complaints against attorneys were not dealt with. How many other members of the public have not had their complaints dealt with and that were hidden by particularly the Law Society of Bophuthatswana?
A last point from our side is that it must be noted that the Legal Practice Act will totally overhaul the disciplinary process and at least one lay person will sit on the disciplinary committees. Whilst we as the ACDP had certain concerns about that Act, it will ensure fair and efficient investigation of alleged misconduct against legal practitioners. This is to be welcomed and the ACDP will clearly support this Bill. Thank you very much.