Parliament’s register shows representivity in legal counsel engaged
The recent media reports attributed to the Advocates for Transformation and the Black Lawyers Association stating that Parliament engages only white males as counsel are far from the truth. The statement and the accusations were made without any interaction with Parliament to establish the facts around how counsel is engaged.
Parliament wishes to place on record that the cases cited involved urgent constitutional matters that needed to be responded to. In such instances, Parliament is constrained by two factors - the availability of the lawyers and senior counsel to attend to these urgent matters and the certified timelines set by the courts. It is unfair to solely judge Parliament on the bases articulated in the media reports without looking at facts.
As a matter of fact our report on litigation undertaken by Parliament indicates that we have used mostly our own legal unit services and the State Attorney to handle legal matters. In instances where we have had to engage external legal services we have used an even spread of legal counsel. Our reports are available for inspection.
Parliament, as a representative of the people and a core custodian of our constitutional democracy, is committed to the transformation agenda of the country. It, therefore, cannot go against its agenda and has full confidence in the service that it engages and has used before.
Parliament wishes to reiterate that these were inappropriate articulations considering that the two parties have not interacted on this matter.
We wish to extend an invitation to the Advocates for Transformation as well as the Black Lawyers Association in order to better address our concerns on the same.
