Mail & Guardian Reporter
AN attorney who achieved his long-held ambition to appear in the supreme court has laid defamation charges against a judge who criticised him for wearing a light-grey suit.
Robert Chalom, an attorney who practices in the Johannesburg suburb of Bruma, told the Mail & Guardian this week he had laid the charges against Judge Pierre Roux at John Vorster Square.
When Chalom appeared before Judge Roux in the Rand Supreme Court last month in his light-grey suit, Roux asked him whether he knew the dress code for attorneys. When Chalom replied that he did not, Judge Roux instructed him to go and ask court officials for details of the judge president’s directive on the matter.
On his return, Chalom indicated there was no dress-code directive, but said one registrar who had telephoned the judge president in Bloemfontein had discovered there was a recommendation that attorneys and advocates wear dark suits.
Chalom told the M&G he had campaigned vigorously for the right of appearance of attorneys in the supreme court. He said he had recently set up the National Association for Independent Lawyers, but had yet to start a membership drive.