Deputy Vice Chancellor Prof M Sibara
Dean of Faculty of Management and Law Adv F Ponelis
Acting Director for the School of Law Ms A Dodd
Director of Public Prosecutions North Gauteng Adv Mzinyathi
Members of the SRC and student formations
Members of the Student Law Society
Academic Staff present
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Allow me to express my gratitude to the vice chancellor and the rest of the University management for agreeing to host us at this august centre of excellence, which occupies an important space in the academic field. When I walked onto these premises in 1985 to register for my B.Juris degree, and when I had the opportunity to address the science community here last year, I never, in my wildest dreams imagined that I would be back addressing you under a year later in my new capacity as Minister of Justice and Correctional Services.
I am proud to be one of the alumni of this esteemed institution which, together with the University of Fort Hare, boasts a rich history that transcends from a painful past to our post 1994 democratic era. From being a product of an education system under the segregation policy of the apartheid government it grew to become a centre of resistance against the apartheid regime itself, much against the expectations of the government of the day.
I am particularly honoured to be addressing you during Heritage Month, at a venue named after a great political activist, teacher, Honorary President of SASO and a former student of this institution, Onkgopotse Tiro, whose life was commemorated by our Former Deputy President Kgalema Motlante last week. Tiro was killed by a parcel bomb in 1974. In his graduation speech in April 1972 Tiro attacked the system of Bantu Education and said –
“Let the Lord be praised, for the day shall come, when all shall be free to breathe the air of freedom which is theirs to breathe and when the day shall have come, no man, no matter how many tanks he has, will reverse the course of events”
I think Tiro would have been proud if he were here today.
Access to Justice is a universal right that gives expression to all other rights in the Bill of Rights. The right of access to court which is expressly enshrined in the Constitution is an epitome of the right of access to justice. It guarantees everyone whose right has been denied, the right and the ability to seek redress. Universities have an important role of ensuring that we have a critical mass of lawyers who would swell the ranks of magistrates, prosecutors, advocates and judges and other fields in the diverse legal fraternity.
Access to justice is not only a value and theme that permeates our constitutional order, it gives effect to a new rights-based society characterised by non-racial, non-sexist, equal and prosperous society. It is in this context that the Bill of Rights and its horizontal application binds all organs of state and private persons. Hence institutions such as universities are bound to put in place policies that promote the purport and object of the Bill of Rights. Anything short of this will result in many being hauled before the courts to compel them to abandon any policy that advances discrimination or exclusion of pupils on any of the grounds listed in the Constitution.
It is a constitutional imperative that our judicial system including the courts, the legal profession and other institutions within or aligned to the justice sector must have the ability, capacity and competence to advance a transformation agenda set by the constitution. These include the courts, constitutional institutions such as the Public Protector and the South African Human Rights Commissions. A feature of our courts and the Chapter 9 institutions is the constitutional requirement that they must function independently and subject only to the Constitution and the law.
Program Director
The ANC led government has made significant strides in the past 20 years of democracy to transform the justice system which was characterised by injustices like inequality before the law and total disregard of the rule of law. I suppose that some here have, in the course of their scholastic explorations, come across the fundamental legislative reforms that have been introduced in the legal sector recently. The Constitution Seventeenth Amendment Act and the Superior Courts Act which came into operation in August 2013 have brought about significant changes to our judicial system. The Constitutional Court is now the apex court in the land and has the power to safeguard the supreme law which is our Constitution.
The Superior Courts Act, apart from creating an independent judicial management system under the Chief Justice, creates a framework for the rationalisation of Superior Courts. In just under seven months down the line the Limpopo Division of the High Court is expected to open its doors to the people of this province. The opening of this court will bring an end to long hardship endured by the local people, of commuting to Tshwane to access the High Court. I implore the universities in this province, both this university and its sister university in Thohoyandou, to be the centre of excellence that contributes to the development of jurisprudence that will emerge from the courts. This would present an opportunity to law students and lecturers alike to hone their legal research skills in respect of the areas of law in which the province has profound interest.
While still on the subject of legal research, may I mention that just a fortnight ago I was addressing an event hosted by the South African Law Reform Commission where prizes were awarded to student participants of the Ismail Mahomed Essay competition. It was discouraging to observe that in the 10 years of its existence the competition has not produced winners from previously disadvantaged universities including this one. One would have imagined that an occasion which is in honour of someone who defeated the odds to become the first Black judge and Chief Justice in a judiciary that was White and predominately male, would naturally attract universities and students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds as a way of correcting the imbalances of the past. This is a matter which I hope the dean of the law faculty who is in our midst would pursue with vigour.
A milestone we pride ourselves in, in this 20th year of democracy, is the racial and gender transformation of the judiciary. Today 61% of judges, out of a total of 239, are Black. This is a remarkable achievement considering that there was only one Black judge in 1994. As you may be aware, we are still lagging behind with regard to gender transformation, as women account only for 76 judges of all judges. The situation is more acute in certain courts, for example, at the Supreme Court of Appeal, out of 25 judges only 7 are women while the Constitutional Court has 2 women judges on its 11-member panel.
The ANC-led government is adopting an aggressive stance to transformation through the support we provide to bodies like the Judicial Services Commission and the Magistrates Commission. We will continue to implement innovative ways of empowering previously disadvantaged individuals and particularly women to compete for seats in our judicial benches and other critical positions in the justice sector.
Ladies and gentlemen
Despite the gains we have made, challenges still persist in certain areas. One of these areas is the lack of transformation in the legal profession. I am sure that many here are aware of the acute shortage of Black and female legal practitioners both at the Bar and side bar. Of the more than 22 500 attorneys, Blacks are in the region of 7 000, while the picture is gloomier in the advocates profession. The picture is replicated in the judiciary as the profession is the primary feeder to the bench.
Therefore special attention is required to create opportunities for aspirant judges and lawyers to pursue a career in the legal sector. We believe that our new Legal Practice Bill will, once enacted, significantly enhance opportunities of access to the profession for legal graduates from previously disadvantaged groups. For example, the new Legal Practice Council will be tasked to develop a mechanism for the payment of stipends to pupils, doing their pupillage to become advocates, in the same way as candidate attorneys receive remuneration while undergoing their practical training. The envisaged Act will also provide for community legal service through which young graduates could amass practical experience to facilitate their entry into the profession. Another important aspect of the new legislation is that it seeks to make quality legal services available and affordable to all our people. It is a known fact that the majority, and even the middle-classes in our country cannot afford private legal services. It seems as if private legal services is something which is only affordable to the very rich, and this is something that we must change if we are to ensure that every person can exercise his or her right to approach a court.
The State is, of course, also a consumer of legal services or the client of an attorney. The State is the biggest consumer of legal services in South Africa, and its litigation account runs into billions of rands annually. However, it is evident that, when attorneys and advocates are briefed to act on behalf of the State, the cake is not shared equitably among the diverse constituencies of practitioners, with Black and female practitioners being the worst affected.
Parliament has recently passed the State Attorney Amendment Act of 2014 to amend certain aspects of the 1957 State Attorney Act. The amendment Act provides, in particular, for the development of policy on briefing patterns and mediation specifically. This is a fundamental development in our transformation trajectory in that, for the first time, there will be a transparent process which is developed through a public participation process. It is through this process that legal work will be allocated equitably among practitioners. This will help address the long persisting concerns about the skewed allocation of briefs allegedly by state attorneys in different offices country-wide. In the interim the department has taken bold steps to increase the allocation of briefs to competent previously disadvantaged individuals from last year’s target of 65% to 70% in 2014/15 financial year. We will monitor compliance with this undertaking closely.
We continue to contribute to job creation in the quest to address the inequalities and unemployment in line with the National Development Plan. In this year alone we have an intake of over 680 interns and 200 unemployed youth with LLB or paralegal qualifications in various courts and other sections of the department. This is an unprecedented number of interns at any given time and this is with a view to imparting knowledge and work experience that law graduates require to enter the job market. The National Prosecuting Authority, as the Director of Prosecutions who is here with us will attest, has a successful aspirant prosecutor programme through which law graduates are absorbed in the NPA.
In the past, our people had to travel vast distances to get to their nearest courts but those days are over as we are bringing the courts closer to our communities. We have, through our Access to Justice Programme built new courts and renovated dilapidated ones. A total of 45 new courts were built in the past 20 years of our democracy, mostly in the previously marginalised areas including rural villages.
Let me turn to the Small Claims Courts which are a powerful mechanism to provide access to civil justice, especially for the poor, and deal with certain civil matters of up to R15 000.00. These Courts are based on speed, simplicity and cost effectiveness and were created to eliminate time-consuming adversarial procedures before and during the trial. No legal representatives are required or allowed to appear on behalf of the litigants in these Courts, as these adversarial procedures would lead to lengthy arguments and delays. We have increased the number of Small Claims Courts significantly in the past 20 years. In 1994 there were 120 Small Claims Courts nationally, mostly in White and urban areas but today there are 306 countrywide of which 30 were established in the previous financial year alone. I wish to commend the 1705 Commissioners who preside in these courts, and who do so without any remuneration. I therefore invite more attorneys, advocates, magistrates and academics to partake in this noble gesture and plough back to their communities.
In 2013/14 the department committed itself to establish 57 Sexual Offences Courts which are closest to the Sexual Offences Model and to thereafter continue to gradually and progressively establish additional Sexual Offences Courts. On the 23 August 2013, the first Sexual Offences Court was opened in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape and last month I opened one in Bethlehem in the Free State which takes the number to 23 since last year.
The President’s decision to integrate the two departments into one Ministry of Justice and Correctional Services will strengthen our efforts of ensuring that we have an integrated criminal justice system that strives for an equitable justice system. The department of correctional services has signed Memoranda of Understanding with three universities, namely University of KwaZulu Natal, Unisa and University of Pretoria to provide expertise to our correctional facilities in a bid to bolster our rehabilitation programmes. We are therefore extending the invite to this university to partner with our department for the same cause.
Ladies and gentlemen,
As I conclude, my appeal to all my learning friends, who will soon be referred to as learned friends in the legal fraternity, is that you do us proud. When you leave this institution and swell the ranks of advocates, attorneys, legal advisers, judges and magistrates, strive to excel so as to deliver legal services of the highest quality to our people. In so doing you will make our cherished Constitution a living reality in the lives of our people, our communities and our country.
I thank you.
