Issued by: The Ministry of Justice
Adv. Johnny de Lange, M.P. National Assembly Houses of Parliament Cape Town 8001 Telephone 021-4032728 Telefax 021-4616551 E-mail jdelange@anc.org.za
VERY URGENT
18 August 1995
Adv. Jasper Noethe, S.C. Director General of Justice Department of Justice Fifth Floor 120 Plein Street Cape Town 8000
Re: PROBLEMS AND PROGRAMMES PERTAINING TO EMPLOYMENT PLACEMENT OF LAW GRADUATES
I am addressing this letter to the Department of Justice, as well as all the major stakeholders in the legal sector and big business, for information and possible response.
Please find enclosed herewith a letter from Mr. Alfred Mbalo, on behalf of the Khayelitsha Law Graduates, dated 30 June 1995, which is self-explanatory.
Upon receipt of this letter my emotions got the better of me, as I was and still am filled with outrage and anger. I do not know what else I expected. Maybe I am just naive, or maybe I just want too much for the "new" South Africa to really be new and not merely a surge of patriotism and adrenalin at the time of the World Cup.
What is the common denominator amongst the twelve? They are persons classified under the previous dispensation as African. Is this a coincidence? Obviously not. How long are we going to allow persons and communities previously marginalised and discriminated against on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender to remain outside the mainstream of South African socio-economic life?
There are some who continuously complain and pontificate on the dangers and horrors of affirmative or corrective action. Without entering that rather facile debate, here we have twelve legally trained and skilled persons from one suburb of Cape Town, who neither government, the legal fraternity, nor big business can accommodate or utilize. I ask myself how this is possible in 1995 in the "new" South Africa. If not even legally trained persons can find employment, what is so "new" about our new dispensation? More so, because it is my view, during a period of transition, every bit of such expertise and skill-professional technical, political or otherwise - that we have available to our nation must be utilised and nurtured to the maximum. After all, because of Apartheid it is in many instances in short supply.
What are we concretely and practically doing in this regard? What capacity building and empowerment programmes (not ad hoc actions) are we putting into place to allow for corrective action for past injustices? How long before the "miracle" of 27 April 1994, the successes since then, including the World Cup and so forth, wear off and become our worst nightmare?
Although it is important to remember and reflect upon the reasons for the condition our country finds itself in, it is of course no use to merely point fingers without starting to take measures to address the legacy of our Apartheid past. To this end, I address two requests to you, for response, as follows:
1. What can we do in the short term to draw these twelve legal graduates into productive and meaningful employment in the legal or business sector? Is there a more formal and structured approach which we can utilise in the short term to address similar instances? For example, why can they not immediately be taken up for training as public prosecutors or magistrates to speed up the representivity and legitimation process within the structures administering justice (which desperately needs impetus in any case); or why can they not be used in the assessors programme at Magistrate and Supreme Court level; or why should we not reintroduce the idea of professional clerks for Supreme Court judges (giving preference to persons from historically disadvan- taged and marginalised sectors of society) and so forth?
2. What long term mechanisms and programmes can we put into place to deal with this type of issue? For example, is it possible for the legal sector through the Department of Justice and/or the National Consultative Legal Forum to establish a permanent mechanism to assist and facilitate the placement of persons with legal training, skills or expertise, especially persons from previously disadvantaged backgrounds. For example, this could be in the form of a national office to collect and collate a database around such persons, which will be available to the legal fraternity, big business and other employers in general. Various creative ways could be developed not only to ensure the dissemination of this information to potentional employers, but to actively engage government, business and stakeholders of the legal sector to employ such persons. Meetings could, for example be arranged, in each Province, with prospective employers and employees. The National Bar Association of the USA apparently has a similar scheme for African American graduates, which works well.
There must be something concrete and practical we can do in the short (and long) term to assist such graduates from the historically disadvantaged and marginalised communities and sectors of society to be integrated into the socio-economic mainstream of our country.
Please note that I may make this matter available to the media, depending on the views of those affected, in an attempt to make their plight known and with the hope that this would assist in conscientising prospective employers.
Thanking you in anticipation. I await your response soonest.
Best Wishes.
Yours faithfully (signed) ADV. JOHNNY DE LANGE, M.P.
Copies to: 1. Adv. Dullah Omar, M.P., Minister of Justice (c/o Ms. Sunita Dulla). 2. Dr. Zola Skweyiya, M.P., Minister of Public Service and Administration. 3. Mr. Alfred Mbalo, on behalf of the Khayelitsha Law Graduates. 4. All stakeholders of the Legal sector. 5. Representative organisations of the Business Sector. 6. Members of the Justice Portfolio Committee (National Assembly).