Turmoil inside pro-transformation Bar association

The Pan African Bar Association of SA (Pabasa), a body known for its pro-transformation stance, faced more mass resignations last week. In two separate letters, 36 advocates announced their immediate departure, with one letter citing concerns the organisation had become ‘politicised’. ‘There are those who believe Pabasa, by its very nature, has to be "political" and continue to issue what we consider unfortunate public statements, such as the recent two against the Legal Practice Council (LPC) and Justice (Ratha) Mokgoatlheng. We respectfully differ with this posture,’ said one letter, from Jabu Motepe SC. The resignations come after nine members resigned in Johannesburg at the end of May, including Pabasa founding member Nasreen Rajab-Budlender SC. The Sunday Times reports that 45 members have now resigned from the association. Its website listed 19 senior counsel and 293 junior members on Friday, although the names of some who have resigned have yet to be removed.

Motepe’s letter announced the resignation of 14 advocates from Pabasa’s Arcadia Chambers in Pretoria. There were 22 resignations from its Loftus Chambers, also in Pretoria. The letter from this chamber did not give reasons, but Elizabeth Baloyi-Mere SC, who signed it, said their reasons were the same as Arcadia’s. The Johannesburg members’ reasons were different; they cited ‘hostility and exclusion’ after they formed a new group within Pabasa. When Pabasa was founded in 2018, its founders said their Bar would be ‘unapologetically black and women-oriented’. The Sunday Times notes that Pabasa also deliberately sought to create an egalitarian and democratic institutional culture. Founding members included Rajab-Budlender, Baloyi-Mere, Sikhakhane, Dumisa Ntsebeza SC, Gcina Malindi SC, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC, Dali Mpofu SC, Vuyani Ngalwana SC and Steven Budlender SC. Now, two of these founding members are among those who have resigned. Baloyi-Mere and Rajab-Budlender also chaired Pabasa in its early years. Motepe’s letter referred to Pabasa’s public statement in June, expressing ‘displeasure’ at the controversial remark made by Mokgoatlheng when he lost his temper in court after counsel asked to be excused to accommodate his travel plans for the Comrades Marathon. ‘I don’t think a white advocate can have the gall to ask me that,’ the judge said.

Motepe also referred to the letter written to the LPC about misconduct charges it brought against Mpofu, in which it requested the LPC to ‘rethink’ the ‘spurious’ charges as they were ‘brought simply to intimidate Mpofu SC’. It said the LPC could ‘do better than be a conveyor belt ... for attacks to push out of the legal profession certain African advocates disliked by the majority of those who constitute the LPC’. The charges were part of ‘wide conspiracy’ to isolate Mpofu and marginalise Pabasa ‘and to prejudice its members for no rational reason apart from ... Pabasa (being) unapologetically Pan Africanist, anti-racist and anti-colonial in its approach’. The Sunday Times notes that Motepe said the resigning members maintained their Bar ‘should be apolitical’ and focus on the development of its members and its juniors. It should work with other Bars and the LPC to address ‘the scourge of unemployed LLB graduates, who measure into thousands and who are unable to get articles or admission into our various Bars’.

Full Sunday Times report