Pitje Transformation Initiative, Advocates' Chambers, Johannesburg
7 May 2007
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Brigitte Mabandla
Advocate Semenya
Advocate Stephan du Toit
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
I am honoured to be part of this official launch of the Godfrey Pitje
Transformation Initiative, an event that honours one of the brightest legal
brains and a courageous freedom fighter in the history of our country.
Indeed, I am pleased that the late Godfrey Pitje's name is being honoured by
the legal community, a profession that he spent the better part of his adult
life trying to transform from serving the needs of the racist order to being
non-racial and non-sexist and administering justice to all South Africans
without fear or favour.
Not only did Godfrey Pitje serve the cause of justice with distinction
during his lifetime, he also, through his unflinching observance and
application of the law, served humanity, leading by example, in the face of
daunting odds and at great risk and cost to himself.
He embodied the principles of equality, non-racialism and justice, living
out his conviction that these were the high ideals that imbue human life with
meaning.
The opening of this facility will greatly contribute to the real
transformation of the legal profession in our country, ensuring that no one is
excluded or marginalised on the basis of race and gender.
All of us, as South Africans, we should count ourselves fortunate to have
had a human being such as Godfrey Pitje among us, and his memory, honoured and
institutionised, will always serve to remind all of us as well as the legal
practitioners at large, to stand firm against injustice in society and strive
to uphold the law with impartiality and fairness.
As government we are determined to work together with the legal profession
and the rest of our society to continue with the transformation process for
which Godfrey Pitje lived his adult life, so that, together we can strengthen
our judicial system to serve the needs of our people and ensure that it
continues to contribute to the development and reconstruction of our
country.
As we know, today among some of the challenges our judicial system faces is
the issue of backlog of cases coming before our courts and the general
transformation of both to the bench and the bar. These are matters that we need
to address together so that the legal profession in our country becomes an even
stronger component of the catalysts for change.
Despite the ongoing transformation processes instituted by government and
the legal profession, we still have a long way to go essentially to overcome
the huge gaps, inequalities, gender and racial prejudices which are a legacy of
our unfortunate apartheid past.
All of us agree that South Africa's judiciary has experienced some important
changes in the past thirteen years, especially the transformation of the bench
from an all white male-dominated bench, to a bench that represents and reflects
the demographics of our country and our legal profession.
The question we have to ask ourselves, however, is whether the
transformation that we are experiencing in the legal profession and the
judiciary is commensurate with and measures up to the demands of a society in
the throes of transition and reconstruction.
We must ask ourselves as to what is it that we still need to do to ensure
that such transformation is sustainable and finds resonance with the key
practitioners without whom no effective transformation can take place.
The past 13 years have seen enactment of a number of laws aimed at ensuring
that our transformation drive is based on sound principles of equality and
human rights.
However, despite all these laws we have not as yet succeeded in creating an
equity environment in many workplaces within the legal fraternity. Many black
and female legal practitioners continue to face prejudice and marginalisation
within their workplaces and we still do not have sufficient mentoring
programmes and support mechanisms for the majority of our people, especially
those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
If we are to overcome the legacy of the past and eliminate prejudices, the
value of equality will have to be respected, practised and promoted in the
legal community.
In this regard, the Legal Services Charter that is being proposed is meant
to ensure that the transformation process is effective and helps us to achieve
our objective of creating a non-racial, non-sexist and united South Africa
where every citizen enjoys justice and all of us respect the Constitution and
the rule of law.
Accordingly, the challenge that the legal profession faces today is that of
ensuring that it transforms itself in such a way that it will be more
accessible to ordinary and poor people who so desperately require its
services.
Correctly, the legal profession has to ask itself what positive role it can
play in providing a professional and quality service to all the people of this
country, especially the poor and marginalised people.
We are very fortunate that in this country there are many examples of legal
bodies as well as individual lawyers, such as Godfrey Pitje, who have excelled
in using their legal expertise to help and empower the poor and the
marginalised, particularly those from the rural areas. We should strengthen
these exemplary organisations and individuals who have made the disadvantaged
in our society to believe in our legal system.
Indeed, responding to these challenges would set off a process of making the
legal profession more relevant to the majority who do not have access to legal
services.
Further, part of the challenge in this regard is also in dealing with the
affordability of legal fees for many poor citizens of our country.
Clearly, when we have together addressed these key transformation challenges
which are at the core of what Godfrey Pitje live for and died cherishing, we
would indeed have honoured his memory in a manner that befits his stature.
Thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
7 May 2007
Source: SAPA
