SENIOR COUNSEL AND ATTORNEY HONOURS: CONFERRAL GUIDELINES PUBLISHED

SENIOR COUNSEL AND ATTORNEY HONOURS: CONFERRAL GUIDELINES PUBLISHED

• 13 March 2024
• Justice & Constitutional Development
• SA Legal Academy

Please note: On 15 March 2024, the Department of Justice & Constitutional Development issued a media statement on the guidelines, quoting Justice & Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola as having said, ‘The colonial system of designating senior advocates as Senior Counsel, which was at times arbitrary and discriminatory, lacked ... fair and just criteria. As a result, the status of Senior Counsel was often sought and granted without proper regard for transforming the legal profession’.

The Department of Justice & Constitutional Development has gazetted uniform guidelines to be applied when recommending the conferment of senior counsel or senior attorney honours on an eligible legal practitioner.

Immediately effective, the guidelines are underpinned by principles set out in a preamble to the Legal Practice Act, 2014. Among other things, these require that – in making recommendations to the Minister – the Legal Practice Council should:

• ‘facilitate the realisation of the goal of a transformed and restructured legal profession that is accountable, efficient and transparent’, and
• enhance and maintain the integrity and status of the legal profession.

Against that backdrop, 4.3.1 of the guidelines states that ‘due regard must be had to:

• the racial and gender composition of the profession
• the demographics of the country, and
• specialised fields of practice.

Reference is also made to seniority, experience, ‘recognised ability’, leadership qualities, ‘maturity of judgment’ and ‘demonstrable commitment to transformation’.

• uniform guidelines

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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