Mr Speaker, no set of rules has been in place to govern the State Attorney's Office, and it has consequently become inefficient and wasteful. At times this has resulted, as you have heard, in scathing comments by the courts and in punitive cost orders against State Attorneys.
The DA supports the creation of a Solicitor-General to steer the implementation of a policy, to be drawn up by the Minister after consultation with the Solicitor-General, on matters such as the co- ordination and management of all litigation; initiating, defending and opposing of matters; and the use of alternative dispute - resolution mechanisms to avoid long, drawn-out litigation where matters should have been settled.
The policy is to be approved by Cabinet and tabled in Parliament. Sir, we would have liked an explicit requirement that the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs should seek and submit the views of the provinces and the local spheres of government on the policy before it serves before Cabinet.
However, it is up to those spheres of government to make their positions known to the Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Ministry, and perhaps the NCOP will insert what we thought.
We were successful in the one key amendment we asked for, namely that the policy can never override the professional duty of an attorney, also of a State Attorney, to his client. Policy drawn up by a national Minister on behalf of the national Cabinet, which will, at times, be locked in litigation with provinces, and others, must not disturb the professional relationship between the State Attorney's Office and his clients in other spheres when there are intergovernmental disputes.
When a client wants to initiate or defend or when a client wants particular counsel to be briefed, the client department's wishes override the broad policy. This has been written in, and so we support the Bill.
Bill read a second time.