Program Director
Chief Justice
The Hosting Law Societies;
The President of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association;
Keynote Speakers and invited guests;
Honourable Judges, Legal Practitioners, Legal Academics; Representatives of Law Societies;
Guests, ladies and gentlemen.
We meet in this beautiful city of Cape Town as a fully-fledged organisation of the voluntary members of the Commonwealth. The city has a particular historical meaning to many of my countrymen. It was near this city that we are told, a group of Dutch sailors arrived uninvited, looking for supplies on their way to the East. From that day in 1652, the history of the country, and the continent, was never going to be the same again.
In 1806 Great Britain took over the colony from the Dutch East India Company and gradually the whole country. I will avoid the historical journey, but state our collective relief from our divided history that we, through your host law society, that you are here, formally and legally invited to deliberate the present and the future of not the lost sailors, and the imperial pursuits, but on the issues that now involve every citizen of the globe.
Your presence here from all the corners of the globe is an indication of the global reach of the legal profession itself. Your gracious acceptance to being in Cape Town for your conference is, to all South Africans, not a ritualistic annual exercise, but a confirmation of the embrace which the world has extended to our new democracy.
We are grateful for these efforts of reintegrating our new democracy into the international community from which it was excluded. Only last month, the coastal city of the Durban eThekwini, hosted the Fifth BRICS Conference and we have been greatly honoured, as we are today here in Cape Town, for the consideration of our cities as host venues for such agenda setting and agenda changing conferences.
With new and emergent issues seizing our attention on a regular basis, it is timely that you meet for the next four days to sharpen your pens, dust your gowns, review your processes, and recomb your wigs, form new networks and share experiences as you respond to these new challenges.
I need not delve into the new challenges as your sessions will be talking to them directly as conference proceeds. I can only state that from our interactions as sovereign states, we sometimes come to conclusions that are not buttressed by uncontested legal instruments, and we rely on this association, among others, to come to our assistance.
In this regard, I concur with the theme of conference: common challenges - common solutions: commonwealth, commerce and ubuntu. I will not try to unpack it because my brief is a simpler one than that. I can only emphasise that all these issues expressed in this theme, are resonant with the Singapore Declaration of Common Principles which our sovereign governments committed to in 1971. These principles are, among others, human rights, socio-economic justice, good governance, rule of law, egalitarianism and peace.
In terms of the security of the profession itself, and the respect with which it should be held by government and states is equally important. A state that prides itself of the supremacy of the rule of law, should, in parallel responsibility also accept that the safety and security of the practitioners who make that use of law possible. For the conference to revisit and to seek total adherence to the Latimer House Principles will not be an exercise of self- preservation, but the preservation of the rule of law itself.
Master of Ceremonies;
Lest I abuse your kindness, let me return to my task.
The city of Cape Town offers a variety of places of convenience in entertainment, relaxation, religion, culture, environment and others. It would be advisable for delegates to find time, even in their congested programme, to take advantage of these places of convenience. I can assure you that it will be worth your while.
It is now my pleasure to welcome you all to this city I have so gloriously painted and to this only second conference of its nature on African soil. It is a conference that does honour to the whole of the continent. The future of the rule of law, and the improvement of jurisprudence for the benefit of millions of the people of the world, is in your hands.
I thank you.
