Nawaal Deane
The Road Accident Fund has watered down its controversial plans to require its legal representatives to hire only black professionals.
This follows a Mail & Guardian report in June on the fund’s affirmative action policy, instructing law firms acting on its behalf to avoid using white advocates to defend their cases.
The fund pays out from a kitty sustained from a levy on the fuel price. This has created a large industry in the legal and medical professions to facilitate and often contest such claims.
Both the fund and accident victims are represented by teams of lawyers and doctors who fight out whether and how much an accident victim should receive in compensation.
Had the plans gone through it would have been one of the most advanced affirmative action policies undertaken by a state institution. Lawyers said the policy could have been interpreted as discrimination, opening the door to a constitutional attack.
The original directive, circulated in April, was also accompanied by a list of previously disadvantaged medical and legal specialists that lawyers representing the fund would have had to use. The new directive says that law firms should choose advocates to achieve greater “representativity in terms of race and gender”.
To monitor the selection process, the fund has instructed all firms to submit their choices every two weeks to “demonstrate the firm’s commitment to achieve transformation”.
Humphrey Kgomongwe, administrator for the fund says, “The [previous] directive was amended because it was an interim one.
“Those who don’t meet the terms of the new directive will have to give their reasons to the transformation committee,” he says.