Sunday Independent Sunday, December 6, 2020

CAPTURE Pabasa slams attacks on lawyers Bar association says personal attacks on Sikhakhane and Ngcukaitobi are based on identity of their clients MANYANE MANYANE THE Pan African Bar Association of South Africa (Pabasa) has raised concern about the “personal attacks” on two prominent lawyers for their roles in the Zondo Commission, saying the criticism was based on nothing but the identity of their clients. In a statement released yesterday, Pabasa chairperson Nasreen Rajab-Budlender said the “virulent attacks” on advocates Muzi Sikhakhane and Tembeka Ngcukaitobi were an affront on their integrity as legal practitioners, based on how the critics feel about the two lawyers’ clients. Sikhakhane and Ngcukaitobi came under fire from sections of the media and society in recent weeks for different but related reasons. Sikhakhane and other members of…

DISPUTE Road Accident Fund unable to cough up MAYIBONGWE MAQHINA THE Road Accident Fund (RAF) is saddled with about 45000 claims that await settlement for a period that ranged between five and 10 years as at last October. The cash-strapped RAF will now need a whopping R49.9 billion to settle all the outstanding claims. This is according to Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula who was responding in writing to parliamentary questions from EFF MP Nontando Nolutshungu. Nolutshungu asked Mbalula how many road accident claims lodged with the RAF had been awaiting settlement for five to 10 years. She also asked when the outstanding claims finally would be settled and what total amount it would take to settle all the claims. In his written response, Mbalula said the total number of road…

ETHICS PSC boss guilty of nepotism MZILIKAZI WA AFRIKA IT IS the end of the road for disgraced Public Service Commission (PSC) director-general Dr Dovhani Mamphiswana, who appointed his mistress as a chief director for professional ethics. On Tuesday, retired judge Cynthia Pretorius, who chaired a disciplinary hearing into allegations of nepotism against Mamphiswana, recommended that President Cyril Ramaphosa fire Mamphiswana. The woman, who may not be named to protect the identity of their child, was appointed to the position of chief director for professional ethics in the PSC on December 1, 2019, earning R1.3 million a year. Pretorius found Mamphiswana guilty on all charges which included failure to disclose a relationship, alternatively a conflict of interest; failure to evaluate the position before it was advertised and nepotism. Pretorius’s report…

The Brief EGYPTIAN RIGHTS GROUP HEAD HOPES RELEASE WILL HELP OTHER PRISONERS THE head of a leading Egyptian human rights group who was held for two weeks on terrorism charges said on Saturday he hoped that the campaign to secure his release would help others still jailed on similar allegations. Activists saw the detention last month of Gasser Abdel Razek, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), and two of the group’s other staff, as the latest escalation of a broad crackdown on political dissent under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Abdel Razek said he was unclear why he had been held beyond the officially stated charges of belonging to a terrorist group and spreading false news. Abdel Razek said: “I’m hoping that our speedy release would have…

MEMOIR Moseneke blasts 12-year delay ‘This was by no means a difficult issue to decide’ says former deputy chief justice LOYISO SIDIMBA loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za RETIRED Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke has described the 12-year delay in dealing with the complaint against Western Cape High Court Judge President John Hlophe as unacceptable. In his recently published judicial memoir, All Rise, Moseneke writes that all the complainant judges but Justice Chris Jafta, had either died or retired. “Whatever the reasons might be for this prolonged delay of deciding the complaint, this is unacceptable,” Moseneke writes. The former Robben Island political prisoner continues: “And yet in the 12 years since the complaint, no less than 14 cases related to our original complaints we decided.” According to Moseneke, the ferocious court battles were about everything…

For the record ‘We never overcharged GEMS’ IN OUR story published in the Sunday Independent last week under the headline, “Plans afoot to charge Ace Magashule’s lawyer”, authored by Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, we reported that there were plans to charge Victor Nkhwashu after his law firm, Victor Nkhwashu Attorneys was allegedly paid double the R60000 retainer agreed upon by the Government Employees Pension Scheme (GEMS) in 2016. We further reported that Nkhwashu’s firm was also accused of invoicing the scheme another R292078.40 “without any specified hours worked and hourly rate”. Nkhwashu has complained that he was not afforded the right of reply because his answers, which were sent after our publishing deadline on Saturday night, were not included in the article. He also demanded that we retract the story in…