Special Hearings — Legal Hearings — 1997-10-27

JULIAN VON KLEMPERER: I haven't been sworn. Would you like me to ... (intervention).

YASMINE SOOKA: Yes, we would ask you.

JULIAN VON KLEMPERER: I believe I'm going to be sworn at, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: (laughter) Mr ... (intervention).

JULIAN VON KLEMPERER: (sworn states)

JULIAN VON KLEMPERER: Madam Chair, I have very little to add to the representations. As they said at the beginning they were prepared in some haste and without submission to the Council for approval I am pleased to be able to report to this meeting today that the submissions were considered by the Council of the Natal Law Society last Friday and were approved. So they are made with the approval and authority of the Council at this stage.
 I don't know if one should touch on anything, but Mrs Wilson raised the question of Roly Arenstein and as it appears from those submissions, the behaviour of the Natal Law Society in the matter of Arenstein is one of the matters where it does, with respect, emerge with some credit.
 I can confirm for the sake of record as my colleague Mr Lax mentioned that Mr Arenstein was re-admitted in 1994 with the support of the Natal Law Society Council. He attended an annual general meeting in Durban very shortly after that readmission at which the whole question of readmission, particularly in the Cara Hessen case was discussed and I think if my recollection correctly serves me, he was complementary to the Council for having taken a principle stand. It refused to have tried to strike him off. The work was done by the Minister who changed the Act.
 As I have also mentioned, in respect of Arenstein, the Minister intervened to try and prevent the Law Society from giving him permission to work in an attorney's practice after his removal from the roll and the Society refused to back down on that as well.
 So that's one matter in which there is some credit and I raise it not because I want particular credit, but because it was raised by Mrs Wilson this morning.
 Thank you Madam Chair.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you Mr Von Klemperer. Do Mr Trikamjee, do Mr Nel and Mr Smith not want to make some kind of comment?

ASHFORD TRIKAMJEE: No, I think they'll be responding on questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Alright. Hanif?

MR VALLY: Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr Trikamjee there's a quote in the NADEL submission distributed to you and I'll quickly read it to you.
 An extract from the Association of Law Societies annual report for 1994, where the chairperson of its human rights committee, Mr A H Trikamjee reported and I quote:
"I was privileged to attend a short seminar on international human rights in Geneva in June 1994, organised by the international Bar Association, where I was quite surprised to learn of the human rights violations in our country. This not only shocked me, but left me quite speechless."
Is this in fact correct?

ASHFORD TRIKAMJEE: No, I think that's been taken out of context. I should know more then anybody else about human rights and I don't want to speak about myself here, because I don't represent myself here but I think that the whole idea, or the whole intention there was to highlight that in this country, within the ALS there appeared to be a total disregard for human rights, where as overseas they seem to know so much about it. It was being exposed there and yet within the profession itself, it was receiving no attention. That was the thrust of that particular statement.

MR VALLY: As a chairperson of the human rights committee for the Law Societies what reports on the violation of human rights have you brought to the attention of the Law Societies?

ASHFORD TRIKAMJEE: Well, I can't tell you that now in detail, but from time to time we had meetings of the committee. I was one of the members of the committee and what we would do is we would meet and try and get from the members together with ourselves, instances what - where we could act and I think those were some of the instances where you find in the main submission where representations they made on behalf of the Association of Law Societies. It's a pity that Mr Ntsebeza is not here, but his was one of the cases that we took up when he was being threatened as a result of a secret document that he got hold of where there was an order or a contract out for his apparent killing by members of the security forces. Now, we were involved in doing something about that to the extent that we arranged with the then leader of the Transkei Government to give him protection.
 So these were some of the instances that we dealt with. But I'm not going to sit here and tell you that we were great protagonists of human rights violations because that didn't happen within the ALS and that's one of the failings.

MR VALLY: In the portion that you've read out to us, summarising your submission to the Commission, there's a bit of confusion on my part. It appears as if the Association of Law Society - and I'm talking about paragraph six of what you just read out - seems to identify human rights with politics, that issues involving human rights were seen as being political. Is that correct?

ASHFORD TRIKAMJEE: Yes. That's how, I think, the previous council saw it. Anything that involved protest, anything that involved human rights violation, anything that involved the ruling order at that time was seen as a political issue and they conveniently put it aside.

MR VALLY: When did this attitude change?

ASHFORD TRIKAMJEE: I think it's changed progressively, perhaps more notably in the last four or five years, particularly since the creation NADEL and BLA, which I think was a direct result of the ALS inability to deal with these problems. I think the existence of NADEL and BLA and their attempt, and constructive attempts to highlight these issues call the ALS to slowly start to rethink its attitude.

MR VALLY: Were the position that you expressed that seeing human rights violations as being in a political domain, reflected - a reflection of the views of your constituency?

ASHFORD TRIKAMJEE: Of the Association of Law Societies?

MR VALLY: That's correct and you represent, by law, all attorneys in the country?

ASHFORD TRIKAMJEE: No, the Association of Law Society is not by law. The Association of Law Societies is not a statutory body, but the four provincial provinces' law societies they are statutory bodies and they represent all the lawyers in the country.

MR VALLY: So your affiliates by law represent all the lawyers in the country?

ASHFORD TRIKAMJEE: Yes.

MR VALLY: Sorry, all the attorneys in the country.

ASHFORD TRIKAMJEE: Attorneys, yes.

YASMINE SOOKA: May I follow that up, Mr Trikamjee because then the question that one wants to raise is; was that then the representative view of all the attorneys in the country at the time, because however one phrases it, it does represent attorneys and there have been particular complaints against the various associations for their failure to intervene and I note in your submission at - I think it is paragraph B, where - there's somewhere where you state I think - and I just want to get that
"The will to confront these issues which we now understand to be the violation of basic human rights was tentative at best."
 I mean I think that the question one wants to ask you, human rights violations remain human rights violations whether now or in the past and surely with the enormous amount of information available with the kind of statements people were making by the ever increasing complaints about the system and what was happening how can you have attorneys actually saying we now understand? I just want to understand that phrase.