Another ruling goes against Barnabas Xulu
Prominent lawyer Barnabas Xulu, who is embroiled in a bitter skirmish with the government over millions of rands in disputed legal fees, has been dealt another blow, reports TimesLIVE.
Xulu, who has represented Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe on a number of occasions, failed in his bid to compel Western Cape High Court Judge Ashley Binns-Ward to recuse himself from the matter this week.
Xulu and his law firm, B Xulu & Partners Incorporated (BXI), are involved in a protracted legal battle with the Department of Environment, Forestry & Fisheries over R20.2m paid to the firm.
In October 2020, Eastern Cape Judge John Smith, appointed to the Western Cape Bench to deal with the matter, ordered that Xulu’s assets – including a Porsche 911 Carrera GTS, his home in upmarket Ballito, KZN, and his law firm’s bank accounts – be frozen.
According to the department, this was ‘on the basis of evidence that Mr Xulu was disposing of assets in order to frustrate the ability of the applicants to execute any judgment they might obtain against him in the principal proceedings’.
After a series of unsuccessful applications to overturn the decision in the High Court, the matter came before Binns-Ward.
Among the reasons Xulu brought an application for Binns-Ward’s recusal was that the judge was a co-complainant against Xulu in a professional misconduct matter.
Binns-Ward confirmed Smith’s order in November 2020. But as well as applying for Binns-Ward’s recusal, Xulu sought leave to appeal.
In a lengthy judgment, Binns-Ward gave a detailed account of the affair and how Smith was brought in to hear one of the applications against Xulu’s firm.
He said Xulu did not comply with Smith’s order to hand over his car and dismissed Xulu’s application for his recusal and the application for leave to appeal with costs.
The excoriating and lengthy judgment makes for astonishing reading, according to a Daily Maverick report by Marianne Thamm.
It sets out Xulu’s myriad attempts at delaying and obstructing the legal process, frustrating the court by failing to submit affidavits timeously, slipping a letter by Hlophe to the Minister of Justice into a bundle of documents ostensibly to influence another judge, as well as evading the execution of a sheriff’s order to attach his assets.
Despite the personal involvement of Hlophe, who stepped in in November 2020 to suggest to the Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola, that a hand-picked judge in another division hear Xulu’s interlocutory application, Xulu has now run out of legal road in this matter, says a lengthy DM report examining the judgment in some detail.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
