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Sehlako Malatji
Pretoria, Gauteng
Indeed. Government and its parastatals should use black lawyers to speed up transformation. This will also give big companies the confidence to use black lawyers in their complex legal matters.
Ntsiki Zophe
Free State
I think it is time for our government to use black lawyers more than ever before in all departments, including in our municipalities. The continued failure to do this says that white lawyers are superior to black lawyers. How long must we blacks endure discrimination, and financial oppression and marginalisation, even by our own government?
Kabelo Mahasha
Limpopo
Government must use black lawyers because it is the same government that preaches transformation.
Geoff Klass
Johannesburg, Gauteng
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng falls into the transformation trap: colour versus merit. This, in turn, speaks against freedom of choice. Ask him why President Jacob Zuma chooses white lawyers when he should be leading the charge of the Black Brigade.
Gwen Mbetha
via SMS
Government should use any competent lawyer and not overuse one lawyer. Some black senior counsel take on too many briefs and end up being ill-prepared in some matters, which is possibly why white lawyers are preferred.
When a white senior counsel is briefed by a state department, there must be insistence that the junior be black, so that skills can be transferred. The state attorney should not choose counsel for departments. This may lead to the development of close and corrupt relationships with particular counsel.
Lebo Modise
via SMS
I don’t see anything wrong with white lawyers being used. They are also South Africans. What I don’t like is when both blacks and whites allow themselves to be manipulated. They have to do their work without fear or favour.
Moffat
North West
Most of our black lawyers are more interested in money than a profile or experience. To an extent, they easily lose focus when politicians offer them positions in government. They have moved on to greener pastures. The politicians also recognise the lawyers who succumb easily to their demands, which leads to bias when it comes time to make decisions.
It is not advisable to use only black lawyers. There must also be Indians and whites. There must be a balanced number of black lawyers to assist in transformation.
HK Matolo-Dlepu
Gauteng
Black lawyers and other professionals must vigorously take on the transformation issues. We have been begging government and other state-owned enterprises to fast-track transformation, but all our requests fall on deaf ears.
The irony is that most of those who head these institutions are black. It is sad that they view their fellow blacks as incapable of delivering the same services as their white counterparts.
We voted in our government in 1994, knowing that they had never governed before. We never doubted them. I do miss the days of black consciousness. I wholly support the chief justice’s article.
