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SUMMARY

Candidate legal practitioners

  • A candidate legal practitioner must, as a component of their vocational training, render eight hours per annum of community service.
  • A person who commences service as a candidate legal practitioner during the course of a calendar year must perform community service equal to not less than one hour per month, or part thereof, in the first calendar year of vocational training.
  • The community service rendered by a candidate attorney must be supervised by their principal and the community service rendered by a pupil must be supervised by their engaging advocate.
  • The period of service referred may be intermittent or continuous.
  • Any extra hours of community service rendered in a calendar year may be carried forward as credits for the next calendar year.
  • A candidate legal practitioner must, after completion of the period of practical vocational training, submit to the council one or more certificates signed by their principal or engaging advocate, as the case may be, confirming that such community service has been rendered.
  • Certain exemptions may apply.

Practising legal practitioners

  • A practising legal practitioner must render 40 hours per annum of community service.
  • A legal practitioner may be exempted from the rendering of community service as set out in the rules.
  • A legal practitioner who starts practising during the course of a calendar year must perform community service equal to not less than three hours per month, or part thereof, in the first calendar year of practice.
  • A legal practitioner need not be supervised during the rendering of community service.
  • Any pro bono services rendered by a practising legal practitioner will be recognised as community service.
  • The period of service referred may be intermittent or continuous.
  • Any extra hours of community service rendered in a calendar year may be carried forward as credits for the next calendar year.

IN THE MEDIA

STATEMENTS FROM OTHER ORGANISATIONS

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Cape Independence Advocacy Group

Dear Speaker,

I am writing to you on behalf of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group (CIAG) and the seventy thousand South Africans who actively follow our work.

We wish to comment on the ‘Electoral Commissions Amendment Act, 2021’, which is proposed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) and was published in the Government Gazette on 21 June 2021.

Given our mandate, our comments are made in the context of the Western Cape, although we appreciate and respect that the constitutional rights enacted through this bill will rightfully apply to all provinces.

This bill is essential to restoring some degree of functional democracy to the voters of the Western Cape and we therefore unreservedly and wholeheartedly endorse it.

Through their voting behaviour, Western Cape voters have made it abundantly clear that they do not endorse many of the policy and ideological positions of the South African national government, but are left utterly powerless to resist them because the voters in other South African provinces, who greatly outnumber them, hold starkly different ideological and political opinions.

In terms of seeing their democratic will enacted, for the majority of Western Cape voters, the democratic era has not offered much of an improvement over the apartheid era. It is a statistical fact that, since 1994, the majority of Western Cape voters have never been governed by the political party they voted for, and they have no foreseeable prospect of ever being governed by the party they vote for. As such, they cannot be said to have functional democracy.

One of the few glimmers of democratic hope Western Cape voters do have, is the provision of Clause 127(2)(f) of the national constitution, and 37(2)(f) of the Western Cape constitution, which allows them, at the discretion of the premier who they elected, to have their voices heard on matters which are important to them, without being drowned out by a national majority who fundamentally hold different views.

To deny Western Cape voters this constitutional right would be a very serious infringement of their political rights and freedoms, and would be a clear indication that parliament and the national government are not interested in the constitutional rights and democratic wishes of Western Cape voters.

We therefore call upon parliament to pass this bill at the earliest opportunity, and without objection.

Yours Faithfully

Phil Craig
(On behalf of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group)