Nelius Rademan, Gallo Images, Foto24
Western Cape Acting Judge Mas-Udah Pangarker found attorney Barnabas Xulu guilty of multiple counts of contempt of court linked to his R20m legal fees battle with the environment department.
The department had successfully applied for Xulu s assets, including his Porsche 911 Carrera, to be frozen as part of its efforts to recover the R20 million in legal fees owed to it by his firm.
Xulu is now seeking to challenge Pangarker’s ruling that he was guilty of contempt of court for, among other things, defying multiple court rulings that he hand over the Porsche.
DA chief whip Natasha Mazzone denies that she lied about her qualifications (Jan Gerber/News24)
No sources explained how Natasha Mazzone was able to balance her various occupations and political pursuits, while complying with the provisions of the Attorney s Act, writes GOOD party secretary-general
Brett Herron.
South Africans are justifiably cynical about the integrity of politicians. Far too many of them are career public representatives, unskilled in any profession or trade, unschooled in honesty, who approach politics like a game of snakes and ladders, simply competing to get to the top where the fat salaries are.
It is a game in which cheating and incompetence aren t necessarily liabilities but can instead prove richly rewarding, funded by taxpayers, of course.
Judge sets aside fraud trial after lawyer admits to being âvery drunkâ during proceedings
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Johannesburg - A lawyer faces sanctions from the Legal Practice Council for representing her fraud-accused client while admitting to being âvery drunkâ.
Judge Francis Kganyago has ruled at the Polokwane High Court that the Legal Practice Council should probe the conduct and behaviour of the lawyer he named as Ms Maloko in his scathing judgment.
Not only was Maloko in a drunken stupor during magistrate court proceedings on December 1, 2020, she also admitted that she did not know what she was doing in court because she was a conveyancer and not a crime lawyer.
Over and above this, acting Western Cape High Court Judge M Pangarker ordered Xulu and his firm, Barnabas Xulu Incorporated (BXI), to pay the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries’ (DEFF) legal costs and has also referred the judgment to the Legal Practice Council.
Pangarker said that the country’s Constitution recognised the supremacy of the rule of law as one of the core values upon which South Africa was founded
“Civil contempt, which is at the heart of the matter, is the crime of disrespect to the court and the rule of law.”
Citing a Supreme Court of Appeal ruling, the judge said that contempt of a court order “is the violation of the dignity, authority and reputation of the court”.