THE Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has overturned a ruling by the Free State High Court and ordered that Bloemfontein attorney Johann Oosthuizen be struck from the roll of legal practitioners for misconduct involving the misappropriation of trust funds.
In a judgment delivered on Friday, the SCA upheld an appeal by the South African Legal Practice Council (LPC) against the earlier High Court decision that had dismissed its application to have Oosthuizen removed from the roll.
The SCA found that Oosthuizen’s actions displayed a “lack of integrity and dishonesty”, leaving no exceptional circumstances to justify a lesser sanction.
Oosthuizen, who had been a director at Van Deventer & Thoabala Inc (VDT) in Bloemfontein until his resignation in August 2020, was accused of failing to pay over R51 506.68 and unlawfully deducting a further R22 250 from the trust funds of a client, Morchim Aroonslam, following a 2007 property transfer handled by VDT.
An investigation by the LPC’s Free State office led to three charges of professional misconduct, to which Oosthuizen pleaded guilty before a disciplinary committee in December 2021.
The disciplinary committee suspended him from practice for five years and fined him R15 000.
However, the LPC considered the sanction too lenient and approached the High Court seeking his removal from the roll.
The High Court dismissed the application in June 2023, ruling that the LPC had no grounds to revisit the disciplinary committee’s decision.
But the SCA found otherwise, holding that “the court remains the final arbiter, in the exercise of its discretion, as to whether a practitioner ought to be removed from the roll of attorneys or whether an order suspending the practitioner would be appropriate”.
Justice Meyer, writing for a unanimous bench, said the sanction of suspension imposed by the disciplinary committee was not final or binding on the LPC.
He emphasised that attorneys, as officers of the court, are held to the highest standards of honesty and integrity.
The SCA ordered that Oosthuizen’s name be struck from the roll, that he pay the R15 000 fine to the Free State Provincial Council of the LPC within seven days and that he facilitate repayment of R100 000 held in trust by Honey Attorneys to Aroonslam.
He was also directed to surrender his certificate of enrolment and pay costs on an attorney-and-client scale.