List of Tables
Chapter 4: Community–based Paralegals
4.3.5 Categories of community-based paralegals in South Africa
A review of literature shows that community-based paralegals in South Africa have different statuses and use a variety of approaches (Dugard and Drage, 2013:12; McQuoid-Mason, 2013:567; Golub, 2003:34;
Pigou, 2000:4). As discussed above, some are paid professionals, a few are unpaid volunteers and some receive only a stipend. Some paralegals work closely with legal aid lawyers; recently, others have started working with lawyers involved in pro-bono programmes. Some paralegals run their CAOs independently under the supervision of a civil society organisation. Some hold tertiary paralegal qualifications, while others learn on the job, building experience through years of community activism and service. In South Africa there are a number of categories of paralegals.
Dugard and Drage (2013:12) identify seven categories of paralegals in South Africa. The “first is the most formalised category, employed in law firms, government departments, and by trade unions. This category serves the needs of the agency, their employer, rather than the general public”. This study is not concerned with this category of paralegals. McQuoid-Mason (2013:571) explains that CBPs’ services “differ from those provided by legal secretaries in law firms who are sometimes also known as paralegals”.
The second category of paralegals serves the general public through various legal structures where they render valuable client interface and support services to public lawyers. These paralegals work within litigation NGOs and branches of Legal Aid South Africa (LASA). Those associated with LASA work in justice centres in various provinces. McQuoid-Mason (2013:567) explains that justice centres’ satellite offices serve smaller towns and villages and are “staffed by paralegals, who do the initial screening of legal aid clients such as the means test and the nature of the client’s problem, offer basic advice or refer clients to other agencies, enter clients’ details in the office data base, and visit prisons”. As indicated in Chapter 2, these satellite offices are serviced by public defenders who operate out of the justice centre in the nearest large town.
The third category is paralegals who work for the Black Sash which is “an NGO that operates sui generis in the South African landscape to advance social security on a quasi-legal frontier and overwhelmingly relies on paralegals” (Dugard and Drage, 2013:14). The Black Sash Trust emerged from a long history of anti- apartheid activism. The Black Sash currently has seven regional offices around the country reduced from nine (Pigou, 2000:9), mainly based in urban areas, and employs fifteen paralegals with a paralegal diploma (Dugard and Drage, 2013:14). These offices are regarded in many quarters as an elite group, not only because of their long history and the fact that they are relatively well-resourced, but because they are well- administered and managed, and focused and effective. They have been able to translate their day-to-day
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work into broader thematic campaigns, particularly around issues relating to social security, labour and marital issues.
According to Dugard and Drage (2013:15), the “Black Sash has a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Home Affairs, the Department of Social Development (DSD) and the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) to monitor and report back on service delivery at local level. The project is known as the Community Monitoring and Advocacy Programme (CMAP)” (Dugard and Drage, 2013:15).
McQuoid-Mason (2013:572) notes that Black Sash paralegals engage in advocacy, consumer protection issues, corruption, social grants, and refugees. Golub (2003:34) submits that the “Black Sash Trust uses professional paralegals to assist citizens with a range of problems, such as obtaining government grants to which they are legally entitled and detecting illegal conduct by government personnel. It also trains volunteers and CBPs”. Toward policy advocacy and governmental accountability across all spheres, “the Black Sash’s work contributes to public interest litigation launched by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC)”
(Golub, 2003:34).
The fourth category of paralegals is CBPs who work in CAOs that are the subject of this study. According to Dugard and Drage (2013:17), it is in this setting that paralegals contribute most broadly “to the promotion and enforcement of access to justice across South Africa, both through their wide geographic range and the fact that they are often the only legal or quasi-legal option within far-flung rural communities”. Community- based paralegal offices in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) are associated with umbrella networks such as the Community Law and Rural Development Centre (CLRDC) in Durban, and the Centre for Community Justice and Development (CCJD) in Pietermaritzburg. Together these two organisations run a network of thirty-nine CAOs coordinated by fifty CBPs. Since this study focuses on CBPs in KZN, a brief background of each network is presented.
The Community-based Paralegals: Practitioners Guide (2010:25) notes that the CLRDC is an NGO that was launched in 1998 and began setting up CAOs in 1989 to provide paralegal services in rural areas of KZN.
Formerly known as the Community Law Centre, this NGO was attached to the Law Faculty at the former University of Natal (now University of KwaZulu-Natal) for ten years. Carole Baekey, a visiting American law professor, was the founding director. David Mcquoid-Mason designed the training programme for CLRDC paralegals and was a founding board member. All CBPs at CLRDC CAOs hold a paralegal diploma from the University of Natal. The first five CAOs were hosted by tribal authorities. The CLRDC currently operates twenty-two CAOs in rural communities “that are governed by customary law and ruled by tribal authorities” (The Community-based Paralegals: Practitioners Guide, 2010:26). Pigou (2000:10) notes that
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the CLRDC provides administration, management and core funding to the advice offices. Pigou adds that the CLRDC CBP programme and CAOs are designed to provide communities with viable structures through which information can be obtained and disseminated, and build capacity in communities, thereby enabling them to spearhead their own development. CLRDC paralegals work without the supervision of a lawyer, and do not usually require professional assistance (Pigou, 2000:4).
The CCJD (formerly the Centre for Criminal Justice) became an independent NGO at the end of 2012. The founding director of the organisation was Professor A.S. Mathews, a professor at the then Faculty of Law (now School of Law) of the former University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. The CCJD has a similar background to the CLRDC, with a shared institutional home and training programme for paralegals. The Community-based Paralegals: Practitioners Guide (2010:25) points out that the involvement of the UKZN School of Law in the two organisations helped developed a credible and accredited community-based programme in KZN. This ensured that the programme adhered to rigorous standards, and offered an avenue for paralegals to earn a Paralegal Diploma. Originally earning a Paralegal Diploma afforded credit toward law school admission. For example, one paralegal from the CCJD who earned a Paralegal Diploma from the UKZN applied it toward law school admission and graduated with an LLB degree in 2013. The CCJD supports CAOs to deal with problems of domestic violence, human rights abuses, problems encountered by farm workers and farm dwellers, and facilitate claims such as grants, private and state pensions. The CCJD fundraises on behalf of the CAOs, enabling them to focus on the work they do best. Additional support (of a logistical and legal nature) is provided when required. The CBPs receive regular refresher training and the organisation has been accredited to provide a national qualification for paralegals by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA). The case studies for this study are CAOs supported by the CCJD;
therefore more detail on the work of CCJD paralegals is provided in chapters 6-9.
The fifth category of paralegals is involved in the main with democracy work within communities. The Social Change and Assistance Trust (SCAT) supports forty-five CAOs, mainly in the Eastern, Western and Northern Cape provinces in South Africa. This support primarily takes the form of start-up funding. The CAOs manage themselves with guidance from the SCAT. According to Dugard and Drage (2013:19), the SCAT model is to provide initial funding and to try to move CAOs as expeditiously as possible into self- sufficiency. The CAOs are expected to find alternative sources of financial support, such as small contributions or levies from the community, as well as private sector involvement. Dugard and Drage’s (2013:19) research findings revealed that the SCAT model assumes that CAOs can attract funding elsewhere; however it is not evident that they are achieving this goal.
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The sixth category of paralegal services is based at university law clinics. South African university law clinics provide legal education and support to clusters of paralegal offices in their area, under the auspices of the Association of University Legal Aid Institutions (AULAI) Trust (The Community-based Paralegals:
Practitioners Guide, 2010:25). The Trust acts as a funding agency for eighteen university law clinics and their associated projects, one of which is the Access to Justice Cluster (AJC) which operates through eight clusters, Western Cape, Free State, Northwest (Potchefstroom and Mafikeng), Limpopo, Rhodes, and Stellenbosch, attached to eight university law clinics. The programme supports paralegals in terms of training and back-up legal services to CAOs provided by lawyers from the law clinics (Dugard and Drage, 2013:23).
The seventh and final category of paralegals is stand-alone CBPs who are described by Dugard and Drage (2013:12) as those who work more autonomously or with organisations such as the LRC on a project basis and more recently with pro bono or arrangements that “are primarily about paralegal service per se and wherein paralegals take up and resolve matters themselves, referring to lawyers only as a last resort when litigation is necessary”.
Benjamin (2012:6) explains that, in South Africa, the National Alliance for the Development of Community Advice Offices (NADCAO) was established to bring some stability to a fragmented, under-resourced and vulnerable sector. The NADCAO followed in the footsteps of the National Community Based Paralegal Association (NCBPA) which was formed in 1996 by stakeholders in the paralegal sector who felt that a representative body was required to bring about transformation and development in the paralegal sector, and to drive recognition of paralegals as part of the legal profession. It was argued that such recognition would enhance the financial and operational security of the sector. The National Paralegal Institute (NPI) was established as a project of the NCBPA to deliver standardised and certified training for paralegals to enable them to work with the justice system. The two structures collapsed in 2004. This threw the sector into crisis, and it again became fragmented and struggled for funding. The funders that supported the NCBPA reopened discussions with stakeholders in response to concerns about the fragmented and weakened state of the sector (Benjamin, 2012:11-14). The NADCAO was launched in 2007 to provide strategic support and advocacy to the CBP sector (Dugard and Drage, 2013:18). Its purpose was to consolidate “a national footprint, position itself within national legal and institutional framework, and increase the capacity and sustainability of individual affiliated CAOs. NADCAO is not a membership or a funding organisation”. In 2013, when NADCAO’s mandate expired, a new, membership-based structure, the Association of Community Advice Offices of South Africa (ACAOSA) was launched to act as the voice of paralegals. NADCAO pledged to provide support to ACAOSA from 2014 to 2016.
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