The Duma Nokwe Group of Advocates – one of the biggest black advocates groups at the Johannesburg Bar – has demanded that the Bar Council retract a recent resolution on chambers, saying it had racially stigmatised the group and perpetuated the notion that black people were not professional.

Legal writer Franny Rabkin, in a report in the Sunday Times, notes that in a letter from the group leader, Wisani Sibuyi SC, the group said the Bar Council’s resolution – that members of the Johannesburg Bar could not share chambers with advocates who were not members – had an indirect discriminatory impact that could be ‘considered as racial discrimination in breach of section 9 of the Constitution’.

The advocates profession, particularly the traditional Bars that fall under the GCB, has long been criticised for its slow pace of transformation. The latest GCB statistics still put most advocates as white.

The Bar is also still finding its feet in the sea change brought about by the Legal Practice Act, which has fundamentally altered the regulation of the legal profession.

The resolution has already led to the resignation of former bar leader Ishmael Semenya SC. Semenya is also the leader of Pitje Chambers, which ‘together with Duma Nokwe represents the largest number of black advocates practising in the same building’, said Sibuyi.

The chair of the council, Sesi Baloyi SC, said a new Bar Council had only recently been elected and that the letter and the ‘potential impact’ of the resolution would be considered as a matter of urgency when it met tomorrow.

‘I can’t pre-empt anything before the meeting,’ said Baloyi.

She said it was clear that members had different views, but that this was something that could require ‘a conversation that brings both sides of the debate together to address the concerns’.

Full Sunday Times report (subscription needed)