Quote of the week
Early in 2016, a racist outburst by a white woman in KwaZulu-Natal, Penny Sparrow, ridiculing Black beachgoers as ‘monkeys’, and announcing that thenceforth she would ‘address the [B]lacks of South Africa as monkeys’, published in her online profile, was quickly disseminated countrywide. It convulsed South Africa in shame and acrid anger. The [Constitutional] Court was not unaffected. Previous members of the Constitutional Court took comfort in reflecting, with evident satisfaction, on the absence of racially loaded and racially defined splits. Dramatically, these now fractured the Court.
"Rainbows and Realities: Justice Johan Froneman in the Explosive Terrain of Linguistic and Cultural Rights" - Constitutional Court Review
On the torpidity and tardiness of the LPC
The [laudable aims of the Legal Practice Act] will remain little more than lofty ideals rather than achievable goals if the necessary will and effort to give effect to them is not present amongst the administrators of the profession. Having a code of conduct which sets out the fundamental rules by which an attorney is to practise and which provides that they shall at all times maintain the highest standards of honesty and integrity and shall treat the interests of their clients as paramount, is all good and well, but it is worth very little unless it is enforced… if those practitioners who contravene the rules and standards of the profession are not dealt with promptly and effectively by [the LPC], then instead of ensuring accountability and upholding the integrity and status of the profession a culture of impunity is fostered and the profession is lowered in the eyes of the public, and the values and principles which are essential to its survival are debased.
