NATIONAL COMMUNITY-BASED PARALEGAL ASSOCIATION (SA)
NCBPA-SA


SUBMISSION BY THE NATIONAL COMMUNITY BASED PARA-LEGAL ASSOCIATION TO PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON TRADE AND INDUSTRY ON THE NATIONAL CREDIT BILL

Introduction

The National Community Based Paralegal Association (NCBPA) appreciates the opportunity provided to stakeholders and the public in general to make inputs to an important national process of making and transforming antiquated legislation. In this instance we refer to legislation required to govern the consumer/credit sector in a democratic constitutional context.

We acknowledge the hard work which the committee has been engaged in so far to getting to where this process is and particularly doing so through broad consultations in order to receive maximum input and make the regulations relate with the needs of every citizen more especially those who often find themselves in the margins of decision making processes. This refers to the poor men, women, elderly and children who populate our rural areas, townships, informal settlements and tenants in farms who coincidentally are still in the majority of the estimated national population of 44 million South Africans.

Our submission is made from a context of;

a.Our existence as an umbrella body of the community based paralegal sector that promotes and protects civil, political rights and social and economic rights of poor communities through a range of activities that include consumer rights, social security, labour rights, justice, safety and security, land and housing rights, home affairs, family matters, health rights and anti discrimination.
b. Paralegals as providers of free legal advise/services, accessing grants and entitlement for the poor, lay/basic counseling, human rights awareness, negotiations, mediation and representation in dispute resolution, facilitating community development, networking and advocacy for rights promotion.

c. The sector as a civil society agency with legitimacy borne out of our historical engagement in the struggle for emancipation and accountability to the communities which we serve. A paralegal is defined as a person who is qualified through education, training and work experience and with the necessary commitment to perform substantive community service and legal advise that requires sound knowledge of legal concepts but which is not exclusively performed by a legal practitioner. Paralegals work in Advice Offices which are created by communities to address problems related to abuse and denial of rights in order to restore the dignity and uplift the livelihoods of those who continue to be marginalized from benefits entitled to citizen. To the poor, equality as enshrined in the constitution is but a "mirage" which the work of your committee and other progressive legislative making process seek to demystify and make real.

Our submission is made in the interest of representing our client base whose voices are least heard in the consumer sector where our work seeks to restore their rights through case handling for advice and counseling, mediation and referrals. This focuses at cases involving banking matters, municipal services, retirement policies, insurance policies, consumer goods, debt collection, hire purchase, lay byes, retail matters, lease agreements, unfair practices in issuing of micro loans. In most instances these matters and problems have a causal/effect relationship with other areas of work done by the paralegal sector. For this reason, we view all our work as tackling poverty and empowerment of communities through integrated service delivery wherein tackling consumer matters plays a pivotal role in overall promotion of social and economic rights. In this regard, paralegals have to handle thousands of cases on an annual basis.

Our interest in making a submission to the consumer credit bill is premised on our commitment to ensure that the regulatory framework is informed by the practical realities facing the poor and voiceless majority where the interests of other more "powerful" stakeholders tend prevail at the detriment of many poor communities.

Problems areas;

1 Debt and indebtedness. are corollary to poverty and reflect the daily lives of many communities through externally driven causes. Many communities serviced by paralegals are appendaged to debt at no fault of their own through subliminal marketing. In a country with high illiteracy rate, most communities realise the implication of their indebtedness only when legal procedures are instituted against them. It is imperative that instigators of the processes which perpetuate debt and indebtedness are regulated with punitive measures that correspond with the psychosocial damage to communities resulting from their actions. Advice Offices attend to hundreds of cases where damage to the human psyche has been as a result of debt and indebtedness. In many cases, families never recover from their state of poverty induced by debt and indebtedness. To validate this, the NCBPA requests to make verbal presentation to the portfolio committee to validate this matter.

2. Monitoring observance of regulatory frameworks by statutory agencies has always been difficult despite the many progressive legislation and enforcement measures being in place. This is common in the client base areas of the paralegal sector where capacity to effect administrative justice continues to be of concern. Often, the paralegal sector observes that difficulties to enforce protective measures results not from the lack of human capacity but commitment to duty, people skills and people oriented service delivery. This implores a need to ensure the regulatory frameworks enable civil society to engage more with the administrative justice processes. This urges for equal partnerships with the state to curb consumer rights abuse especially in more remote areas where these abuse are often isolated from enlightened public scrutiny which are areas where civil society have the most impact by virtue of their location and knowledge of social dynamics which perpetuate poverty through debt/indebtedness.

3. Mobilisation of communities has been a spontaneous process through out the country focusing at the failure of service delivery in several local authorities/municipality. In most instances, this has led to damage to public property and is some circumstances it has also happened to private property resulting collective anger, dissatisfaction and revenge. Reactions to difficulties faced by communities due to consumer related problems such as micro lending malpractices etc can also induce spontaneous mass reaction as an expression of anger against rights abuse. Not only will damage be inflicted on property but security to life can easily be under threat. In such instances, while rights are provided for society to mobiles around a common cause, it is imperative that this be done in an orderly and productive manner. The regulatory framework for the national credit bill has to ensure that in instances where mobilization has to be invoked to address a problem, the state of poverty in the affected community should be made a central factor in determining negative consequences which may arise from the outcome of the mobilization. This may require that concerted efforts be put in place to address the nature and causes of poverty, access to resources, awareness raising on procedures and forms of recourse. The regulatory framework should project the role of civil society in partnership with the state in effecting some of these as remedial measures.

Conclusion

While we recognize the commitment of the portfolio committee to ensure that the consumer sector is regulated through a progressive legislative framework, we feel duty bound to engage with the opportunity presented by making this written submission. However we feel that a more concrete and forceful submission that prods other salient issues can be made through a verbal submission to the portfolio committee as it engages with this very important process. In this way, more practical issues can be highlighted from the perspective of the community and the paralegal who are at the coalface of issues and problems which the regulatory framework seeks to correct in the interest of democratic, equal and non exploitative society. We therefore ask that our request for a verbal submission in respect to the above matters be granted.


Yours sincerely,


Joel Legketho Martin Monyela
President, NCBPA-SA Chief Executive Officer