LAUGHING LIKE A LAWYER
To be a lawyer in SA! The legal profession is one of the very few industries that will miss Jacob Zuma’s presidency. No lawyer worthy of that title can legitimately accuse the native of Nkandla of having done nothing to create jobs in their profession. The legal profession is still enjoying the boom times emanating from Zuma’s disastrous, corruption-riddled government career.
Starting way back in the late 1990s when he was in the provincial government of Kwazulu-natal, Zuma became the gift that kept on giving to lawyers. The longest running criminal case that I’m aware of — other than Dave King’s 13-year battle with the SA Revenue Service — is Zuma’s corruption and racketeering case, which started with Schabir Shaik’s arrest in 2001.
The case is far from over, as Zuma is yet to have his day in court on the matters for which Shaik was convicted in May 2005. The one constant in the intervening 17 years has been armies of lawyers.
The R17m that SA taxpayers have paid for Zuma’s legal fees is no doubt understated. Whatever the number, it is only a part of the total spent by others on legal fees on the same case. The DA, for example, tapped its vast donor community for hundreds of millions of rands to ensure the one who deceives with a smile, as his middle name denotes, does not get away.
Then came Zuma’s corruption-riddled presidency. In 2016, Zuma’s last full year as president, the government paid a whopping R873m in legal fees, according to information sourced by researcher Gareth van Onselen. This was 161% higher than the previous six years. In 2009, the year Zuma became president, government departments spent R334m on legal services. Of course not all of this expenditure was directly incurred in the defence or service of the president, as it includes expenditure by all 35 government depart- ments. The SA Police Service was responsible for R300m alone.
But even though Zuma is finally gone, his effect on the legal profession is still there. It will still be felt for many more years. Take the current commissions of inquiry into the cancer of his administration.
With their dark, tailored suits and heavy briefcases, the lawyers are the only constant at every sitting of the Raymond Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture. On any given day, there are at least 23 lawyers sitting and taking copious notes.
The situation is no different in Pretoria at judge Robert Nugent’s commission into maladministration at the SA Revenue Service. Each witness who appears at both hearings is accompanied by no fewer than two lawyers.
The only winners
It is my considered opinion that lawyers will be the only winners to emerge from the ongoing commissions. Particularly as the Hawks and prosecutors continue to show no interest in the many crimes committed against the people of SA over the past 10 years. It is true that judges Zondo and Nugent will eventually get to the bottom of the corruption and maladministration that Gedleyihlekisa presided over. I am quite confident they will unearth the truth. (Journalists have already been doing so for quite a while.)
At the end we will take solace from the fact that we know how SA was plundered by those who swore to defend and advance the best interests of the country. But that is all we will get. Truth. Useless truth.
Without seeking to impugn the integrity of the commissions and their honourable leaders, that truth will be as useless as the truth already unearthed by investigative journalists in the absence of criminal prosecutions of those responsible.
The lawyers will not have those worries though.
We will know how SA was plundered but that is all we will get. Truth. Useless truth