DA objects to racialised Draft Legal Sector Code

18 July 2022

The DA is strongly opposed to the Draft Legal Sector Code that President Cyril Ramaphosa's cabinet last week approved for publication.

We call on government to reconsider the code prior to gazetting it as the current provisions are far too onerous and unnecessarily racialised.

What the DA finds highly troubling is the nonsensical pro bono requirement of firms earning an income between R3 million and R15 million being required to perform 200 hours of pro bono work per attorney for "poor, marginalised and black clients from rural areas".

The stipulation that the pro bono work must be performed for black clients is unnecessary as a person who is poor and requires pro bono assistance will require such assistance irrespective of their skin colour.

The DA strongly believes in - and has adopted - a policy of non-racialism that will effectively redress the continued economic exclusion of 30 million impoverished citizens while simultaneously doing away with continued Apartheid-style racial classification - such as the above.

Other requirements in the code that the DA finds troubling are:

A firm earning above R15 million will only need to do 500 hours of pro bono work per year per company; and

Advocates with revenues above R5 million will need to do 150 hours of pro bono per year.

While pro bono legal work is important, these requirements are vastly more than the existing requirement of 24 hours per annum, and will be overly burdensome on the profession.

These requirements are also nonsensical in that they burden lower earning firms to a far greater degree than higher earning firms.

If government goes ahead and gazettes it, the DA will formally submit our objections and we will encourage other South Africans, especially those in the legal profession, to also do so.

Issued by Glynnis Breytenbach, DA Shadow Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, 18 July 2022