There are too many "anachronistic" features of the bar that block the advancement of black and women advocates, said chairman of the General Council of the Bar of SA Vuyani Ngalwana SC. Among the "inappropriately prescriptive" rules blocking transformation were those that prescribed the period before which counsel fees did not become payable, when the council could claim payment of a fee, and the circumstances in which counsel could waive fees. Other impediments included the rule that only the council could remove a defaulting attorney from the defaulters list and that the onus was on counsel to sue a defaulting attorney for overdue fees. Ngalwana said these "wholly irrational" rules had taken over the private enterprise of advocates ", taking the Bar back behind the Iron Curtain".
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