Legislation: Paralegals Bill a work in progress

The long-awaited Paralegals Bill is still a work in progress, according to the Department of Justice & Constitutional Development’s 2018/19 annual report, notes Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch. It did not even feature in a Deputy Minister John Jeffery’s speech last week at a Social Change Assistance Trust function in Cape Town. Instead, he focused on progress made in developing a draft policy paper aimed at ‘encapsulating’ the department’s ‘commitment to regulating the community-based advice office sector’, which is run largely by volunteer paralegals anyway. The paper will include recommendations emerging from recent consultations on a community-based advice office sustainability study report, which identified what is required for the sector to continue providing ‘support and front-line assistance to many who do not have the means to access other forms of legal or advice services’.

A system of ‘co-regulation’ is apparently envisaged, combining ‘elements of self-regulation’ with government ‘support’ and ‘participation’. A community advice office ‘governing body’ would be established by way of legislation that would also prescribe certain ‘critical’ regulatory requirements. However, the development of a ‘detailed regulatory framework’ would be left to the governing body itself. Among other things, this framework would seek to ‘professionalise’ and ‘formalise’ the sector, improving ‘accountability mechanisms both vertically and horizontally’.

Community advice offices and their paralegals were identified in the department’s 2017-2020 strategic plan as ‘a priority area for the development of policy and legislation’. However, as far back as 2015 the Deputy Minister told delegates at a national conference on para-legalism that – drawing from ‘UN principles’ on paralegal services – a Regulation of Paralegals Bill was being drafted to provide for: standardised training curricula and accreditation schemes; supervision from qualified lawyers; and norms and standards against which the quality of available services would be assessed.