So Many Questions

Advocates For Transformation says the Cape Bar Council must be expelled from the General Council of the Bar because of a lack of transformation. Chris Barron asked AFT president Dumisa Ntsebeza . . . How would expelling the CBC from the GCB promote transformation? I don’t think it was a resolution intended to promote transformation. So it’s just punitive? Exactly. It was intended to cause the CBC to accept that their continued membership of the GCB should be on the basis that they comply with the protocols that were agreed a couple of years ago. What protocols? It was a single one. When you send delegates to a GCB AGM, 50% of those delegates should be members of the AFT or people nominated by the AFT. It is manifest that members of the CBC are not 50% AFT. Why should AFT members be any better at promoting transformation than black members of the CBC who are not members of AFT? Representation of the governing structures is by organisation, not by individuals. So it was agreed that 50% should be AFT, an organisation that has campaigned for transformation of the bar since 1998. That is why AFT claims to be the legitimate representative of those members who advance the cause of nonracialism, nonsexism . . . How can AFT decide that it owns transformation? It is very clear in our constitution that we are committed to nonracism and nonsexism. Is only AFT committed to those principles? There is an agreement here that the organisation that is going to champion the cause of those who are less privileged because of legislation in the past is the AFT. How would black members of the Cape bar be better off if 50% of members of the CBC are approved and controlled by AFT? Because that is the organisation that campaigned for parity of representation in the governing structures. We, everybody, decided on a premise where there will be a semblance of equality in the CBC. Aren’t nine out of 14 members of the council AFT members? Yes. So how can AFT say there is no equality in the CBC? Those people who were members of AFT resigned from AFT. Because they felt the executive was making statements and decisions without consulting them? Well, why did they not vote them out of office? They can do that. This is a democracy. Our problem is with people who resign and then throw stones at the organisation. Being a democracy they presumably have a right to do that if they feel AFT is not representing their interests? Some say there are more black people outside AFT than in it and AFT does not have legitimacy to claim they are representatives of those wanting equality, nonracism. How can AFT claim to be the sole representatives of those who want transformation? Because it became the only organisation that grouped in 1998 saying, “We are sick and tired of . . .” That’s ancient history, isn’t it? If we don’t root our present position in where we come from . . . Isn’t this just about AFT thinking it owns transformation? The general members have accepted the legitimacy of the role AFT has played in promoting transformation. How does telling black counsel they must not apply to take silk promote

transformation? I am not aware of that, but I have been hearing noises. And that only candidates approved by AFT can be confirmed for silk? I am not aware of that. Does it promote transformation when AFT sends the Road Accident Fund and Department of Home Affairs a list of lawyers they must brief? I am wary of giving an opinion on issues whose details I do not have. Is it because of racism there are relatively few black counsel? I can’t say it is the only reason. It’s a function of history. SeventyCape bar percentof less thanof membersfive years of the standingHow can are AFT blacksay there and/oris no female. transformation? The question of transformation is inextricably linked to the question of briefing patterns. Most of the practitioners who leave the bar cannot make ends meet because they don’t get the work because of ingrained prejudice. Who’s responsible for briefing patterns? The state attorney’s office must take the lead in giving meaningful work to black practitioners. Aren’t briefing patterns the prerogative of clients? Yes, but clients gain a sense of what their attorneys want. If attorneys took the lead, it would change. Is the low number of black law graduates part of the problem? Yes. We need to look firstly at schooling. If you get poor matric results because of a poor education system, those people are going to poor universities and do an LLB you wouldn’t want to touch with a long pole. And then they struggle. So the lack of transformation we’re talking about is also a function of a rotten education system? I couldn’t agree with you more.