Black lawyers in plea to president

ZUMA ASKS STATE TO PROVIDE WORK

President Jacob Zuma has encouraged all arms of state and all spheres of government to prioritise and empower black lawyers, particularly women.

Yesterday, after about 100 members of the Black Lawyers Association (BLA) marched to the president’s offices to hand over a memorandum in which they voiced their dissatisfaction at the state’s continued disregard of black and women legal practitioners in its briefing patterns and distribution of legal work.

BLA president Lutendo Sigogo said they have realised that some state departments, state-owned enterprises and municipalities issue state legal work without adherence to their internal supply chain management frameworks or the provisions of section 217 of the constitution.

“It will seem that the state believes that white legal practitioners are more competent than their black counterparts. This belief disregards systemic hindrance to any one’s full potential,” he said.

He added that the BLA never thoughT it would be difficult for them to obtain legal work from the new government.

It was aware of the hardships black legal practitioners such as Nelson Mandela, Alfred Mangena and others suffered during apartheid and especially when the apartheid government prevented them from opening offices in big cities and denying them from servicing corporate South Africa.

“We demand that all the state departments, enterprises and municipalities provide the BLA with a list of panel attorneys and date of appointment of such panel and schedule of the legal work/ distributed briefs issued in the ensuing 12 months. This schedule must reveal the names, gender and race of the legal practitioner, type of legal work and the total fee paid,” Sigogo said,

Zuma has directed Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha to attend to the concerns raised by BLA.

“We take their concerns very seriously and we genuinely understand their concerns,” said Zuma, who encouraged all arms of state and all spheres of government to prioritise and empower black lawyers, particularly women.

“The legal fraternity is one of the key sectors that we are targeting as part of our radical socioeconomic transformation programme in order to correct the uneven and unequal racial and gender representation in key sectors of our society and in the economy.”

The BLA gave Zuma 30 days to act on their demands. –

Picture: Jacques Nelles MEN IN BLACK. Members of the Black Lawyers Association during a protest on the lawns of the Union Buildings, yesterday as they handed over a memorandum to the Presidency in Pretoria.