The African National Congress (ANC) on Thursday asked for time to mull proposed alternatives to provisions of the Legal Practice Bill which have raised the ire of the opposition and the legal profession.

Among these are a tariff structure for the legal profession and ministerial prerogative to dissolve the proposed new single statutory council governing the legal profession.

Justice portfolio committee chairperson Luwellyn Landers said the ruling party would by next week have had time to consider draft five of the bill – a work in progress of alternative wordings reflecting the positions of the ANC and the opposition in discussions in the last month.

The bill has been in the pipeline for a decade and seeks to transform the legal profession's governance structures.

Chief among the points of disagreement is the ministerial powers pertaining to the new council, which will replace all existing law societies and put an end to the legal fraternity's long tradition of self regulation.

African Christian Democratic Party MP Steve Swart said the proposal was open to abuse, along with a further proviso allowing the minister to appoint an interim council for six months.

Swart said the minister could, for example, dissolve the council merely because it was his view that it had failed to sufficiently transform the legal profession.

He pointed out that as the bill stood "the members of the interim council do not even have to belong to the legal profession". He suggested that six months was long enough for potentially inept or politically motivated councillors to damage the profession.

On Thursday, Democratic Alliance MP Dene Smuts successfully urged the committee to consider a costs disclosure clause based on the Australian example.

"Such a clause would require a written fee agreement between lawyer and client, billing arrangements based on cost per hour, and an estimation of costs. A client's right to negotiate fees would therefore become law, and soon."

Smuts said it was good that Justice Minister Jeff Radebe included the question of legal costs in the bill, but the current proposal to create a fee structure was inadequate and failed to ensure improved access to justice.

Plans to defer a decision to an inquiry, to be conducted by the proposed new council, would leave South Africans waiting a few more years for something long overdue.

"I wanted us to do something immediately in this bill for South Africans to address the big problem we have on legal costs," Smuts said.

It was regrettable that the ANC had failed to hear the opposition's pleas for continued separate regulation for attorneys and advocates.

The ANC's position would result in "fusion by stealth" of the two professions. It seemed inspired by a similar step taken in Zimbabwe decades ago to address the fact that at the time most advocates in the neighbouring state were white and only they had the right of appearance in higher courts.

It ignored the fact that in South Africa, roughly as many black as white attorneys had been admitted to the bar since 2004.

"Fusion is a delusion in any case. Nearly every jurisdiction which has introduced it has seen advocates and their Bars come up again like mushrooms," she said.

"The Legal Practice Bill is the last thing South Africa needs, but the ANC is blindly pursuing its illusions."

The ANC has been pressing for the legislation to be finalised, with Landers telling MPs on Thursday that judges have expressed impatience at the delays in putting it on the statute books.

The Law Society of South Africa has in submissions on the latest draft pleaded for ministerial powers to be limited, and warned that if the legislation curtailed the profession's independence, the courts would lose their independence.