Committees of the National Forum

To best utilise the time and skills of the members of the National Forum on the Legal Profession (NF), four working committees have been established and the NF members divided into these committees.

An Executive Committee comprising the Chairperson, Ms Moroka SC (Minster’s nominee), the Deputy Chairperson, Max Boqwana (LSSA, Nadel) and the executive officer will oversee the work of the NF and report to the Minister at the required intervals.

The four committees

The Admin and Human Resources Committee will deal with the administration and staffing aspects as well as stakeholder relations. Its first duty was to consider applications for the positions of chief executive and financial officer, which were expected to be filled early in August, in consultation with the Justice Director General. The rest of the staff complement would follow. The NF has been provided office space in Centurion, in the same building as the SA Law Reform Commission, but independent from the Justice Department. This committee will also deal with the issue of a consolidated database of all legal practitioners – attorneys and advocates – that will comprise the rolls of the new LPC.
It is critical that practitioners ensure that their details are current and complete with their present regulatory body (for attorneys that will be your current provincial law society) to ensure that they are captured on the roll at the Legal Practice Council once it comes into being. The committee will draft a handover plan from the current dispensation to the new dispensation.

The Governance Committee will consider the structure of the LPC and delegation of powers to the provincial councils, as well as the areas of jurisdiction of the latter. In addition it will make recommendations on the election of members to both the national and provincial councils. The complex issue of funding of the new structures will also be considered by this committee and proposals made to the Minister.

The Rules and Code of Conduct Committee will develop a code of conduct as well as rules relating to disciplinary bodies, the lodging of complaints against legal practitioners and any other rules. These must all be gazetted for comment. In the course of its work, the committee – and all the other committees – may come across aspects of the Act which may not translate well into the implementation, This committee will be responsible for proposing amendments to the Act, if necessary.

The Education, Standards and Accreditation Committee will deal with various aspects of and the rules relating to practical vocational training, competency-based examinations/assessments and institutions that will qualify to conduct assessments. The rules must be gazetted for comment. It will also make recommendations on the right of appearance of candidate legal practitioners. Other aspects that it may consider are the LLB degree, compulsory post-qualification professional development and practice management, foreign qualifications, as well as the mobility between the branches of the profession as the Act permits easy movement between the roll of attorneys and the roll of advocates.