Advocate has only himself to blame

Bizarre and unnecessary courtroom antics see former political activist struck off the roll…

AS A YOUNG man, Vuyisile Dlova escaped the bombs of the apartheid security forces when he fled to Swaziland and helped other members of the PAC cross the border.

But as a former law professor, and with a 1988 Cambridge doctorate, he seemed to blow himself up professionally when he appeared in court on misconduct charges.

The case against Dlova, practising at the time as an advocate in the Eastern Cape, was brought by the General Council of the Bar, the body that oversees the professional behaviour of advocates.

Dlova disputed all the allegations, among them that he took work and payment directly from the public. He said he worked through the Nikwanto Community Business Law Centre in Mthatha, an organisation he set up to help the local community “on various matters including legal matters”. But the court found Nikwanto was just a mechanism for soliciting work from the public.

The dispute emerged after a former client, Goodman Mfanelo Mjekula, complained to the council. A bank manager in trouble for taking an “unapproved overdraft”, Mjekula asked Dlova for help with his trial.

He said Dlova wanted an initial payment of R20 000, for which he was never given a receipt.

Dlova later said he had negotiated a deal: Mjekula would pay Standard Bank back at the rate of R5 000 a month. He asked for another R40 000 to be put into his trust account so that during Mjekula’s trial this would back up Mjekula’s commitment to repaying in full.

At the end of the trial, during which Dlova appeared for him, Mjekula was sentenced to five years imprisonment suspended on condition he repaid the R265 000 he owed the bank at the rate of R5 000 a month.

Dlova disputed Mjekula’s entire evidence. Under cross-examination, Dlova was asked about documents he had provided to the bar council, but he made a “vituperative response”, said the judges.

In their judgment, delivered this week, the judges said: “He became abusive, pointedly refused to look at the documents… raised his voice and proceeded to shout at counsel.”

It wasn’t difficult to understand why, said the court: the documents proved he was lying. After denying he had received either amount from Mjekula, Dlova was shown a bank deposit slip for R40 000 in his name, at which point he “suddenly maintained that he could not properly see the document”.

Referred to records of his bank account showing the deposit of this amount, he refused to answer any questions saying this was “hearsay” and he did not have to respond.

Dlova’s refusal even to look at the statements was further proof of his untruthfulness, said the court. The judges said he had lied “unashamedly” and they referred to a “number of aggravating circumstances” making it necessary for them to act against Dlova.

They explained these “aggravating circumstances” in detail, but one stands out in particular: when Dlova was shown the bundle of papers about which he would be cross-examined, Roland Suhr, who appeared for the bar council said, in passing: “Do you follow?”

It’s the kind of thing you will often hear in court, when the person asking a question wants to make sure the witness has the exact line in the text, or understands the nuance of what is being put.

But Dlova let rip, claiming Suhr was treating him as a child and was being condescending. When the court intervened to say that counsel was asking “a simple question”, Dlova set off again, raving about how he had never been addressed like this before.

As you read sections of the transcript of the case, you can’t help but be struck by his bizarre behaviour.

The court made it clear that an isolated case of taking work directly from a client would not have resulted in striking off. In other words, if Dlova had simply apologised and said it would not happen again he could well have survived.

Instead, he blatantly lied, refused to answer questions, behaved impertinently, repeatedly lost his temper, and said that since he had done nothing wrong he would therefore continue to act as he had done before.

The inevitable consequence was that the court had no choice but to strike him from the roll.

It seems a great waste – but this former political activist with all his subsequent experience as a legal academic and advocate only has himself to blame for the predicament in which he finds himself.

Carmelrickard.posterous.com