LETTER: The ‘usual suspects’ in the legal community

MPs in the British House of Commons are naming and condemning lawyers who regularly act for Russian oligarchs. They may not have been convicted of crimes, but flaunt immense wealth that could under no circumstances have been accrued in a legitimate fashion. Moreover, it is often linked to the thievery that accompanied the plunder of Russian state companies.

Yes, we know the old standbys — innocent until proven guilty and everybody deserves a defence — but isn’t it time for SA lawyers, the bars and law societies to condemn the “usual suspects” here too?

They pop up to defend any and every corrupt immoral individual with a standard playbook of delay, abuse the court system in its many forms, drop allegations of racism and conspiracy, manufacture legal concepts, and rely on long-winded and contorted interpretations of the constitution and hopeless appeals right up to the Constitutional Court for every case. This has even been extended to manufactured application to the Constitutional Court for it to rescind its own rulings.

These same few lawyers all have the same modus operandi — push the merits of the case as far as possible onto the back burner and argue process until the cows come home. Surely the judicial arm of the state has the intellectual capacity to put a stop to this?

Sydney Kaye, Via email

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