Cape Town - Two Western Cape High Court judges have dismissed a senior Cape Town lawyer, Johan van der Berg’s application for re-admission as a legal practitioner and enrolment as an advocate of the High Court of South Africa.
Van der Berg approached the court for a review to set aside the decision by the South African Legal Practice Council (LPC) to oppose the re-admission application, and with an interlocutory application to compel the LPC to deliver the record of its decision.
These requests were also declined, with Judges André Le Grange and Judith Cloete ordering him to withdraw the review and interlocutory applications and to pay the LPC’s costs.
Van der Berg was admitted as an advocate in April 1974 and became a Senior Counsel in 1991 and practised continuously, although not full-time until March 22, 2007 when the
Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) upheld an order of the High Court striking his name from the roll of advocates.
Van der Berg’s problems arose from the time he represented a German national who was alleged to have defrauded various people. The SCA said at the time that Van den Berg had acted in conflict with the duties of an advocate in various respects. In mitigation during this attempt, Van der Berg, 76, said he had “served a sentence” of 16 years.
He said that he was never in 35 years of active practice found guilty of unprofessional conduct, and that the application to have his name struck from the roll of advocates related to a single client.
The judges said: “The fundamental starting point was for the applicant to have made a full and frank disclosure of what motivated him to commit the transgressions.”
They ruled that his failure to do so meant that he had not met the required threshold.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za