A Response to NADEL
The debate surrounding judicial transformation specifically and the legal profession generally is a complex one. It does no one any good that participants in it seek to spuriously attack each other, as NADEL has recently done to the Helen Suzman Foundation.
In the reduced version of an article, originally carried in the Weekend Argus, Legalbrief Today reports that, based on its President's affidavit, the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADEL), is unhappy with the Helen Suzman Foundation's impending litigation against the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) ("HSF didn't mention unsuccessful blacks - NADEL," Monday, 16 September 2013).
While the reduced version of the article fairly and accurately summarises the basis for the HSF's litigation, based on the reduced record, at least, it seems that NADEL's opposition to the HSF's litigation is as spurious as it is superficial.
The two interlocking bases of the attack seem to be: (a) that in its founding papers, the HSF did not mention any unsuccessful black candidates, but rather only seems to make much of the "JSC's failure to appoint a particular white male counsel who had unsuccessfully applied on a few occasions;" and (b) that in making no reference to said unsuccessful black candidates, the HSF does not fully address all factors which need to be canvassed for the purposes of a meaningful debate about judicial selection and transformation (my words, not theirs).
Being an association of lawyers, one would presume that NADEL would properly understand the way in which a legal case must be crafted. It is not only constrained to being about a particular set of facts, it is also constrained by the fact that it must not be hypothetical, academic or amount to asking the court for legal advice. Typically, when a party approaches a court for relief, it does so based on a particular set of facts and is under no obligation to discuss every possibility, similar or dissimilar, to its own case that may have occurred.