Anyone who believes a lawyer has acted unprofessionally has a right to lay a complaint with the Legal Practice Council (LPC) and it is not necessary for that person to have been “personally affected”, the LPC said in a statement this week.
The legal profession regulator's statement comes after it was blasted by chief justice Mandisa Maya earlier this month when she found out that senior counsel Dali Mpofu was being charged for an allegedly discriminatory remark that he had made in her Judicial Service Commission interviews in 2022 — yet she had not been informed.
TimesLIVE Premium reported on May 2 that, in a letter to the LPC in April, Maya said she found it “thoroughly baffling that the Legal Practice Council has launched these proceedings, partially in my name ... a whole three years after the fact, without affording me the basic courtesy of informing me”.
She had not lodged a complaint against Mpofu, she said in her letter. The LPC using her name in this way was “utterly disrespectful and patronising”, she said. She told the LPC she had no wish to be involved in the proceedings and “trust that the Legal Practice Council will withdraw my name from its charge sheet”.
We will remove any reference to you in the charges, and no evidence will be led relating to your JSC interview.
— Ignatius Briel, Gauteng director of the LPC
Gauteng director of the LPC, Ignatius Briel, had written back to the chief justice the day after explaining that a complaint had been received from the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac), and that the LPC had a duty “to investigate all complaints made against legal practitioners”.
The letter explained that it was not the LPC’s “practice to ask sitting judges for comments on complaints, as we are concerned that doing so may compromise the judiciary in the exercise of its duties”. However, the LPC would be reconsidering this approach — “given your correspondence”, he said.
“We will remove any reference to you in the charges, and no evidence will be led relating to your JSC interview,” said Briel in his letter.
When Mpofu’s disciplinary was due to begin on April 30, its chairperson, Daniel Mpanza, announced that the charge concerning Maya had indeed been removed from the charge sheet because Maya did not want to proceed with it. Charges concerning former public protector Thuli Madonsela had been removed from the charge sheet for the same reason, he said.
The LPC’s statement on Sunday repeated that the LPC “generally does not require judges, due to their position as judicial officers, to testify in disciplinary proceedings”. When it came to judges, reliance was “normally placed on their written judgments and any transcripts of the relevant proceedings”, said the statement.
The LPC said it was composed of a national council and nine provincial councils, “each made up of elected and appointed councillors”.
“Each council has its own employees and may engage legal practitioners on an ad hoc basis to serve on investigation committees and disciplinary committees of the LPC,” said the statement. These committees operated at provincial level and did not include office bearers or employees of the LPC.
The LPC “does not interfere in the performance of their functions”, it said.
It said the allegations against Mpofu were “a matter of public record” and had “generated significant public debate, both in support of and against the reported actions”.
“Therefore, it is appropriate for an independent disciplinary body to evaluate the conduct and determine its acceptability. Ultimately, the role of the LPC is to provide a framework for the conduct to be assessed in terms of the Code of Conduct for Legal Practitioners.”
Asked by TimesLIVE Premium why Briel had told Maya that the charge concerning her would be removed from the charge sheet, Briel said: “It was mainly out of respect for the chief justice and her position/office.”
Mpofu originally faced seven charges, but these have now been reduced to four. The one involving Maya related to him saying during her 2022 JSC interview that the two had spent “nights together” and then clarifying, on a prompt by Maya, that he was talking about late night study sessions when they served pupillage at the Johannesburg Bar.
The LPC’s charge, which has now been dropped, was that the remark “failed to uphold the principles of our constitution, as this remark was discriminatory and laden with inappropriate sexual innuendo, which was offensive, unprofessional and lacking decorum”.
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