Disgraced lawyer begs court for second chance
After being struck from the roll eight years ago, and spending time in jail for fraud, disgraced lawyer Michael Randell has approached the Makhanda high court in a bid to start practising again.
Claiming to have been rehabilitated, he begged the court for a second chance.
Randell was convicted and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment after he pilfered millions of rand from a Gqeberha school.
Randell lodged an application in the Makhanda high court earlier this month, but the regulating body for lawyers, the Legal Practice Council (LPC), is opposed to him rejoining the legal fraternity.
Representatives for the council argued for the application to be dismissed with costs.
Randell defrauded Greenwood Primary School out of more than R2.5m while serving on the School Governing Body between 1999 and 2005. He was subsequently struck from the roll of attorneys and released on parole in November 2019, after serving just 11 months behind bars.
He was 65 when he was jailed.
In his founding affidavit, Randell said he had been rehabilitated and that the court should give him a second chance.
“In my founding affidavit, I set out facts which I believed would enable the court to assess my fitness to hold office as an attorney, essentially to decide whether, despite my past misconduct, subsequent events have rendered me a changed person and one who is now considered to be a fit and proper person,” he said.
“The assessment as to whether I am now a fit and proper person to be readmitted is one which would take into account my present circumstances, including one would assume, my current state of mind, my rehabilitation as a person, my contrition for the misconduct, my reformation following the elapse of time
during which I was in prison, and also which prohibited me from practising as an attorney.”
Randell had maintained his innocence throughout the trial, even taking the matter on appeal, all the way to the Constitutional Court, which he ultimately lost.
In further court papers, Randell said he began his readmission process in October 2020.
“[I wrote to the] Eastern Cape Provincial LPC,” he said.
“I informed the LPC of my intention to seek readmission and inquired as to the LPC’s requirements.
“Inter alia, I inquired as to the suitability of a possible personal interview for a proper assessment as to whether I should be considered to be fit and proper again.”
After receiving no response from the LPC, Randell said he sent a series of follow-up letters and only received a response more than a year later.
“[The LPC] responded on November 30 2021, informing me that the council had not yet considered my application,” he said.
“[The LPC] advised me that the relevant subcommittee of the new council would meet early the next year [2022] to consider the application and make recommendations to council.”
LPC chair Janine Myburgh said the council had resolved to oppose the application as Randell failed to meet the requirements to be readmitted as an attorney.
“Furthermore, the applicant [Randell] has failed to make a full and proper disclosure of the relevant facts pertinent to the matter,” Myburgh said.
She said Randell should not be readmitted to the bar as he had acted in a serious breach of his fiduciary duty to Greenwood Primary School.
Myburgh said it was his duty to deal with trust assets to further the interests of the beneficiary and not to further his own personal interests.
“The applicant acted in breach of his fiduciary duty by not only deliberately and intentionally withholding information from the school but also concealing from the school that the trustees had appointed themselves as beneficiaries and intended to benefit from the proceeds of the sale to the exclusion of the school,” she said.
“[Randell’s] version was rejected as untrue, that he had little or no experience in trust law, and was unaware that a fiduciary relationship existed or that he acted in breach thereof, and found that his conduct was inherently dishonest and fraudulent.
“[Randell’s] conduct was premeditated, carefully planned and executed over a period of eight years.”
Myburgh said further that Randell’s founding affidavit was marred with flaws.
“[The affidavit] is largely a repetition of the unsuccessful arguments in opposing the application for the removal of his name from the roll of attorneys,” she said.
“Though he disclosed the fraud criminal conviction, he has not included the finding of the court that his conduct was fraudulent, dishonest, unreliable and that he brought the attorney’s profession into disrepute.
“No reasons or explanation had been provided as to why he should be considered a fit and proper person to be readmitted, considering the findings of the court regarding his conduct.”
Magistrate Khamdilizine Nqadala, who presided over his trial in the Gqeberha commercial crimes court, said at the time that Randell had shown a complete lack of remorse throughout the trial, and even after his conviction.
Randell, once a respected attorney in the province with a special interest in human rights, pioneered several successful court cases on behalf of underprivileged schools against the Eastern Cape department of education.