The court has expressed its concern regarding the conduct of a firm of attorneys, who in six separate applications by foreigners against Home Affairs, used identical information in all six matters, apart from changing a few minor details such as names and dates.
Judge President Dunstan Mlambo, sitting in the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, said it was clearly “a copy and paste effort, as all six applications contained exactly the same grammatical errors”.
Judge Mlambo, in a judgment concurred by two other judges now ordered that the law firm and the advocate who appeared in the matters had to pay the legal fees from their own pocket.
Judge Mlambo was so concerned about the conduct of the law firm, that he said this matter must be brought to the attention of the Legal Practice Council (the legal watchdog organisation) for further investigation.
The matter concerned six refugees who turned to the court against the Department of Home Affairs as they wanted asylum status. The main application was disposed of earlier this year, but the judge wanted to hear submissions on costs following the court’s concerns about the manner in which the applications were done.
The court’s concern was that its processes were being abused as six identical applications were placed on the urgent roll as individual matters when in fact it appeared to be one application replicated six times.
What was of particular concern as set out in those paragraphs was that all six applicants evinced identical backgrounds, barring certain information such as their countries of origin and when they entered South Africa or when and where they were arrested.
The matters were all instituted by the same firm of attorneys, Manamela MA Attorneys and contained the same grammatical errors. This gave the inescapable impression that one application was used as a template, and then copied and pasted onto the others, Judge Mlambo said.
Headed that this is not the first time that the courts have had to deal with abuses of their processes in relation to identical affidavits, nor is it the first time that applications involving asylum seekers appear to be given little to no regard by the attorneys and counsel handling them.
He referred to the “cottage industry” of using identical affidavits in multiple applications before the courts and said this is something this court has inherent power to guard against.
“By enquiring into what is an alarming practice of using identical affidavits save for personal details like names, this court was not engaging in anything novel,” Judge Mlmambo remarked.
In referring to the grammatical mistakes which were identical in each matter, the judge said in pointing these out is not to provide an English lesson.
“In a country like ours, it is hardly expected for legal practitioners, the majority of whom speak English as their second, third and further language, not to make mistakes while drafting…
What is unacceptable is for these mistakes to be replicated in almost all of a single law firm’s applications.” The judge said this is “clearly a cut and paste exercise by the firm”.
“The ineluctable conclusion is that Manamela MA Attorneys have involved themselves in “cottage industry” conduct and/or practices. It is a clear abuse of the judicial process.”
The judge added that the State Attorney, who has received every one of the matters involving Manamela MA Attorneys must also be taken to task for their negligence in not realising the repeated use of identical affidavits.
“This conduct must be brought to the attention of the (Justice) Minister to consider whether it is necessary to put measures in place that could prevent such abuse.
The deliberate placing of false information before this court and subsequently claiming fees for work not actually done must be brought to the attention of the National Director of Public Prosecutions to decide whether any crimes have been committed,” Judge Mlambo said.
Pretoria News