In what Business Day describes as an unprecedented move, lobby group Advocates For Transformation (AFT) will tomorrow (Saturday) seek the expulsion of the Cape Bar from the General Council of the Bar (GCB) over transformation concerns. The AFT wants the Cape Bar to amend its constitution to require that 50% of its council, the governing body, should be nominated by the AFT, as is the case at the Johannesburg and Pretoria Bars. The GCB’s own governing structures are also constitutionally structured to be 50% AFT. The Cape Bar’s constitution is different. It requires that 50% of members of its council be black – African, coloured, or Indian – but this is not dependent on organisational affiliation. The Business Day report p oints out that until recently, the 50% black requirement meant in practice that 50% of the Cape Bar council’s members were in fact AFT members, as most black members of the Bar were AFT members. But there has been a fallout in the AFT Western Cape branch, leading to 19 advocates resigning. AFT national chair Dumisa Ntsebeza SC said the GCB had passed a resolution that required each of its constituent Bars to constitutionally entrench that 50% of its members be nominated by the AFT. But chair of the Cape Bar council, Tanya Golden SC, said if such a motion were to be passed, it would be null and void. The GCB’s constitution was ‘very clear. It expressly states that it has no jurisdiction over the constituent Bars save in respect of appeals in disciplinary matters and recommendations on rules of etiquette.’

Full Business Day report