Mandla acts against lawyer

MANDLA Mandela has filed a misconduct complaint with the Eastern Cape Bar Council against a lawyer who acted in a high court action against him last month.

Nelson Mandela’s grandson claims that David Smith, an advocate from Port Elizabeth, misled the court with a certificate of urgency that said the former president was in a vegetative state.

Smith appeared for Mandla Mandela’s aunt, Makiziwe Mandela, and 14 other members of the family in an action to have ancestral remains returned from Mvezo to Qunu in the Eastern Cape.

Smith submitted the document to the High Court in Mthatha two weeks ago, claiming Mandela’s health had deteriorated and that the family had been advised by the doctors treating him to switch off life-support machines. This account of Mandela’s health was denied by the presidency, family members and close

The court order had been obtained ‘with undue haste’

friends of the former president, who said he was critically ill but responsive.

The submission supported an argument for the court to urgently hear an application to have the remains returned to Qunu, from where Mandla Mandela had taken them.

Judge Lusindiso Pakade granted the order, which was partly based on the certificate of urgency submitted by Smith.

The chairman of the Eastern Cape Society of Advocates, Gerald Bloem, said the complaint would be submitted to its disciplinary committee.

Smith said he had not been told of the complaint.

He declined to comment further.

In the complaint, Mandla Mandela said the court order had been obtained “with undue haste and on misleading or untrue facts”.

He said that by submitting the certificate of urgency, Smith had undertaken to provide affidavits from Mandela’s doctors. They were never delivered, Mandla Mandela said.