GENBAR URGENT APPLICATION AGAINST THE COMPETITION COMMISSION

24 November 2000

The General Council of the Bar of South Africa - the national federal body for 1800 advocates in private practice - has today issued an urgent application against the Competition Commission. The Minister of Justice is also cited as a respondent.

The application is supported by all nine of South Africa's Bars. It follows a notice gazetted by the Commission earlier this week which gives the Bars five weeks' notice, inter alia, that:

• advocates must take work from the public and not (as is currently the case) only on instructions from attorneys;
• current professional controls on advertising cannot continue to operate;
• the duty on advocates to keep chambers will not be sustained;
• the professional ban on members of Bars working with other admitted advocates who are not members of Bars, and thus subject to their ethical and disciplinary rules, must cease.

The Commission's ruling follows an application to it by the GCB and the provincial Bars twelve months ago, and a submission to the Commission in the name of the Minister of Justice a few weeks ago. The chairman of the GCB, Adv Jeremy Gauntlett SC, today issued the following statement:

"The terms and the timing of this ruling oblige us to seek a High Court review.

The GCB does not want to anticipate in any way what the court may do. We accordingly make no comment at this time other than to say that we do not accept that the ruling is valid. Our case in broad outline is that -

• the Commission has acted under the wrong provisions of the Act;
• the Commission has attached conditions to its ruling when it had no power to do so;
• it would appear not to have consulted the Minister of Justice himself, as its own Act requires it to do, but to have acted on a draft document submitted by the Minister's "Policy Unit";
• it has not given the GCB an opportunity to respond to the document which attacks the Bar in a number of respects which are factually and legally misinformed;
• it has overlooked or disregarded the detailed material the GCB put before it when the GCB sought its ruling - in fact, it requires the Bar to abolish rules changed years ago.

The Commission's determination to outlaw at short notice a form of specialist referral practice in existence in many countries, and drawing directly on the internationally respected English Bar, has necessitated that the review be done urgently. It is hoped that a hearing can be achieved in the first week of December.

Issued by: General Council Of The Bar Of South Africa
Jeremy Gauntlett SC
Chairman : General Council of The Bar Of South Africa
Contact number: 082 413 9093