Law association denies exclusion claims
The recently revived Namibia Law Association (NLA) vehemently denies that it is excluding white men, as is alleged by certain members of the legal fraternity.
It was alleged that all lawyers, except white men, were invited to attend the NLA's re-launch on Saturday, 25 February.
A member of the newly installed governing council of the NLA, Uno Katjipuka, flatly denied this claim.
“This is absolutely and completely incorrect,” retorted Katjipuka. “Everyone supporting the objectives of the NLA was invited.”
She said she had seen at least one white man at the event and surmised that there might have been more.
Katjipuka did acknowledge that the NLA had approached specific people and that invitation letters had been sent out, but stressed that although most of the NLA members were from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, the voluntary association was not exclusively for them.
In fact, Richard Metcalfe, a white man, was a founding member of the NLA, she said.
“The NLA is not concerned with who is white and who is black, but rather with who is aligned with our objectives and how to best achieve them. The closest we come to being concerned with race is the fact that most, but not all of our members, come from what we Namibians call previously disadvantaged backgrounds and the main targets of our various objectives are previously disadvantaged Namibians,” said Katjipuka.
A white male lawyer preferring anonymity, who is adamant that the NLA sidelines - if not excludes - white men, said: “As a country we must decide whether we proceed as a segregated, discriminatory society or as a unified nation. It serves no purpose to speak about unity, but we establish entities and actively promote the interest of certain persons based on the colour of their skin or their tribe of origin, to the detriment of other Namibians.”
He went on to say that racially divisive practices stemmed from many years of political rhetoric, which he said had now “unfortunately infiltrated the realm of civil society” such as the NLA.
“We cannot find unity if our actions are divisive,” he said.
Katjipuka said at the re-launch that the NLA was revived because while a “good, perhaps even substantial, number of previously disadvantaged legal practitioners have gained prominent status and respect among the legal fraternity and financial security” it “does not mean that the original goals have been achieved”.
One of these goals is to achieve a “fully represented judiciary”.
“It simply means a judiciary whose makeup is representative of the Namibian people,” said Katjipuka, adding that women are still “very” underrepresented on the bench.
“There needs to be more female judges,” Katjipuka said. “Where judges come from has an impact on how they approach cases on the bench.”
Another matter the NLA wants to be addressed is the prohibitively expensive legal services and the fact that most people are uninformed of their legal rights and how to protect those, she said.
“Having said all that, we do not apologise for having organised the NLA or that most of us come from previously disadvantaged backgrounds or that we have decided to do what we consider to be our duty, which is to do everything we can to effect meaningful social change in the lives of ordinary Namibians who for the most part are not only previously disadvantaged, but who continue to be disadvantaged because they do not have adequate access to the legal system,” said Katjipuka.
It was alleged that all lawyers, except white men, were invited to attend the NLA's re-launch on Saturday, 25 February.
A member of the newly installed governing council of the NLA, Uno Katjipuka, flatly denied this claim.
“This is absolutely and completely incorrect,” retorted Katjipuka. “Everyone supporting the objectives of the NLA was invited.”
She said she had seen at least one white man at the event and surmised that there might have been more.
Katjipuka did acknowledge that the NLA had approached specific people and that invitation letters had been sent out, but stressed that although most of the NLA members were from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, the voluntary association was not exclusively for them.
In fact, Richard Metcalfe, a white man, was a founding member of the NLA, she said.
“The NLA is not concerned with who is white and who is black, but rather with who is aligned with our objectives and how to best achieve them. The closest we come to being concerned with race is the fact that most, but not all of our members, come from what we Namibians call previously disadvantaged backgrounds and the main targets of our various objectives are previously disadvantaged Namibians,” said Katjipuka.
A white male lawyer preferring anonymity, who is adamant that the NLA sidelines - if not excludes - white men, said: “As a country we must decide whether we proceed as a segregated, discriminatory society or as a unified nation. It serves no purpose to speak about unity, but we establish entities and actively promote the interest of certain persons based on the colour of their skin or their tribe of origin, to the detriment of other Namibians.”
He went on to say that racially divisive practices stemmed from many years of political rhetoric, which he said had now “unfortunately infiltrated the realm of civil society” such as the NLA.
“We cannot find unity if our actions are divisive,” he said.
Katjipuka said at the re-launch that the NLA was revived because while a “good, perhaps even substantial, number of previously disadvantaged legal practitioners have gained prominent status and respect among the legal fraternity and financial security” it “does not mean that the original goals have been achieved”.
One of these goals is to achieve a “fully represented judiciary”.
“It simply means a judiciary whose makeup is representative of the Namibian people,” said Katjipuka, adding that women are still “very” underrepresented on the bench.
“There needs to be more female judges,” Katjipuka said. “Where judges come from has an impact on how they approach cases on the bench.”
Another matter the NLA wants to be addressed is the prohibitively expensive legal services and the fact that most people are uninformed of their legal rights and how to protect those, she said.
“Having said all that, we do not apologise for having organised the NLA or that most of us come from previously disadvantaged backgrounds or that we have decided to do what we consider to be our duty, which is to do everything we can to effect meaningful social change in the lives of ordinary Namibians who for the most part are not only previously disadvantaged, but who continue to be disadvantaged because they do not have adequate access to the legal system,” said Katjipuka.
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