Pinky Khoabane

Do we not have capable black male and female lawyers?

Marius du Toit represented former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni in his fraud case. How can we forget Kemp J Kemp's victories for President Jacob Zuma in his rape and corruption cases? Then there was Wim Trengove who represented the state against Zuma in the corruption trial and later, Vusi Pikoli in his battle with the state over his sacking. Now we have Jaap Cilliers for Jackie Selebi in his graft allegations.

What emerges from this picture is confirmation that we live in a country where the top positions in our legal system are still dominated by white males and where clients - both black and white - have little confidence in the ability of black lawyers and white women lawyers to stave off a jail sentence.

There seem to be the same old faces emerging at every one of these high-profile cases. But that makes sense. These lawyers are acquiring experience and building a reputation for themselves, partly as a result of the media and public attention given to these cases.

Du Toit is representing Clinton Nassif, the security boss who was employed by slain mining magnate Brett Kebble. Nassif is a state witness in the Selebi case. We also know of Trengove's dominance on the South African legal landscape, including his glowing record in cases involving human rights issues, the victory in the case for the abolition of the death penalty being one such case. He has also represented former President Nelson Mandela during his divorce case and his battle with former rugby chief Louis Luyt.

By now you ought to realise that the question I'm raising here points to the issue of transformation in our legal system, unless of course you fall under that segment of readers I prefer to call "blonde". These are the readers forever agitated by anything that remotely alludes to race.

Their response is the same old: "Your racist slip is showing", "Stop giving us your victim mentality", or "Without a doubt you manage to piss me off each week".

If they are not berating me, they are advising me on what topic to tackle instead of the one that I'm preoccupied with at the time of penning this column. I will be tackling rugby or cricket, for example, and genius blondie will advise me to ponder Bafana Bafana instead.

Let me make this very clear. I live in a democracy now and I think and write what I like.

While I respect the right of an individual to appoint a team that will best represent him or her in a court of law, the tendency by some black leaders to choose pale male lawyers raises questions about their commitment to the values of equality and diversity in the legal system.

Black lawyers, and women in general, are already battling the perception that their work is not on par with that of their white male counterparts. Many people have the misguided belief that these lawyers hold top positions not on merit but because of affirmative action policies. Clients are therefore wary of giving them the opportunities with which to prove their abilities and gain the necessary experience to compete equally.

You would therefore expect that those who fought for the liberation of this country, including the policies that are meant to redress the imbalances of apartheid, would talk the talk and walk the talk.

But there is also the issue of the choice of lawyer in some cases that just leaves me cold. Cilliers, Selebi's lawyer, defended former minister of defence Magnus Malan in the KwaMakhutha murder trial in which 13 people were killed.

He later defended chemical and biological expert, Wouter "Dr Death" Basson on charges of murder, fraud and drug trafficking. Basson was the head of South Africa's chemical and biological programme, which used chilling methods, including poisoning and the injection of lethal drugs into the bodies of anti-apartheid activists. His trial unveiled the lengths to which his unit would go to eliminate people who Selebi would have called comrades. Basson was acquitted of all charges.

Cilliers also defended the Waterkloof Four. They were found guilty of the racially inspired murder of a black man and sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment last year.

Selebi's choice may have been motivated by Cilliers's victory in the Basson case, but for goodness sake, was there really no one else, seeing that Selebi spent years in exile fighting for a nonracial society where hitherto disadvantaged people would be given more access to better opportunities professionally and otherwise? Do I smell double standards?