Advocates' Chambers, Johannesburg, 7 May 2007
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Brigitte Mabandla,
Advocate Semenya,
Advocate Stephan du Toit, SC,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen:
I am honoured to be part of this official launch of the Godfrey Pitje Transformation Initiative, an event that honours one of the brightest legal brains and a courageous freedom fighter in the history of our country.
Indeed, I am pleased that the late Godfrey Pitje's name is being honoured by the legal community, a profession that he spent the better part of his adult life trying to transform from serving the needs of the racist order to being non-racial and non-sexist and administering justice to all South Africans without fear or favour.
Not only did Godfrey Pitje serve the cause of justice with distinction during his lifetime, he also, through his unflinching observance and application of the law, served humanity, leading by example, in the face of daunting odds and at great risk and cost to himself.
He embodied the principles of equality, non-racialism and justice, living out his conviction that these were the high ideals that imbue human life with meaning.
The opening of this facility will greatly contribute to the real transformation of the legal profession in our country, ensuring that no one is excluded or marginalised on the basis of race and gender.
All of us, as South Africans, we should count ourselves fortunate to have had a human being such as Godfrey Pitje among us, and his memory, honoured and institutionised, will always serve to remind all of us as well as the legal practitioners at large, to stand firm against injustice in society and strive to uphold the law with impartiality and fairness.
As government we are determined to work together with the legal profession and the rest of our society to continue with the transformation process for which Godfrey Pitje lived his adult life, so that, together we can strengthen our judicial system to serve the needs of our people and ensure that it continues to contribute to the development and reconstruction of our country.
As we know, today among some of the challenges our judicial system faces is the issue of backlog of cases coming before our courts and the general transformation of both to the Bench and the Bar. These are matters that we need to address together so that the legal profession in our country becomes an even stronger component of the catalysts for change.
Despite the ongoing transformation processes instituted by government and the legal profession, we still have a long way to go essentially to overcome the huge gaps, inequalities, gender and racial prejudices which are a legacy of our unfortunate apartheid past.
All of us agree that South Africa's judiciary has experienced some important changes in the past thirteen years, especially the transformation of the Bench from an all white male-dominated Bench, to a Bench that represents and reflects the demographics of our country and our legal profession.
The question we have to ask ourselves, however, is whether the transformation that we are experiencing in the legal profession and the judiciary is commensurate with and measures up to the demands of a society in the throes of transition and reconstruction.
We must ask ourselves as to what is it that we still need to do to ensure that such transformation is sustainable and finds resonance with the key practitioners without whom no effective transformation can take place.
The past 13 years have seen enactment of a number of laws aimed at ensuring that our transformation drive is based on sound principles of equality and human rights.
However, despite all these laws we have not as yet succeeded in creating an equity environment in many workplaces within the legal fraternity. Many black and female legal practitioners continue to face prejudice and marginalisation within their workplaces and we still do not have sufficient mentoring programmes and support mechanisms for the majority of our people, especially those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
If we are to overcome the legacy of the past and eliminate prejudices, the value of equality will have to be respected, practised and promoted in the legal community.
In this regard, the Legal Services Charter that is being proposed is meant to ensure that the transformation process is effective and helps us to achieve our objective of creating a non-racial, non-sexist and united South Africa where every citizen enjoys justice and all of us respect the Constitution and the rule of law.
Accordingly, the challenge that the legal profession faces today is that of ensuring that it transforms itself in such a way that it will be more accessible to ordinary and poor people who so desperately require its services.
Correctly, the legal profession has to ask itself what positive role it can play in providing a professional and quality service to all the people of this country, especially the poor and marginalised people.
We are very fortunate that in this country there are many examples of legal bodies as well as individual lawyers, such as Godfrey Pitje, who have excelled in using their legal expertise to help and empower the poor and the marginalised, particularly those from the rural areas. We should strengthen these exemplary organisations and individuals who have made the disadvantaged in our society to believe in our legal system.
Indeed, responding to these challenges would set off a process of making the legal profession more relevant to the majority who do not have access to legal services.
Further, part of the challenge in this regard is also in dealing with the affordability of legal fees for many poor citizens of our country.
Clearly, when we have together addressed these key transformation challenges which are at the core of what Godfrey Pitje live for and died cherishing, we would indeed have honoured his memory in a manner that befits his stature.
Thank you.