LEGAL PRACTICE ACT: MORE DISCPLINARY AND APPEAL SECTIONS IN EFFECT FROM 26 MAY 2023

LEGAL PRACTICE ACT: MORE DISCPLINARY AND APPEAL SECTIONS IN EFFECT FROM 26 MAY 2023

• 25 May 2023
• Legal Practice Council
• SA Legal Academy

More sections of the Legal Practice Act, 2014, will come into force on Friday 26 May 2023, by presidential proclamation in the Government Gazette. They focus on disciplinary proceedings and related appeals.

• section 37(5)(e)(ii) (establishing a disciplinary body) requires that body to include ‘at least one lay person drawn by the Council from a list of persons established and maintained by the Office of the Ombud, who has been approved by the Office of the Ombud as being suitable to serve on disciplinary committees, and who is paid an allowance for this purpose determined by the Council and published in the Gazette’.
• section 40(1)(b)(ii) and (7)(b) (proceedings after a disciplinary hearing, and sanctions) require that:
  • ‘If a disciplinary committee finds that the legal practitioner, candidate legal practitioner or juristic entity is guilty of misconduct it must … inform the legal practitioner, candidate legal practitioner or representative of the juristic entity of the right of appeal as provided for in terms of section 41’
  • ‘At the conclusion of a disciplinary hearing a disciplinary committee must notify the complainant, the Council and the Provincial Council in writing of the outcome of the hearing’, and that
  • ‘If a disciplinary committee finds that the legal practitioner, candidate legal practitioner or juristic entity is not guilty of misconduct it must inform the complainant of the right of appeal as provided for in terms of section 41’.
• section 41 deals with appeals against the conduct or finding of a disciplinary committee.

Please click the links below to access the documents:

• presidential proclamation
• Act, with details on sections already in effect

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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