Prominent EC attorney struck off the roll

A prominent Queenstown attorney who was convicted of fraud for charging fees in dubious lawsuits has been struck off the roll of attorneys.

Milile Martin Mpambaniso was convicted in the Bhisho High Court in 2011 of fraud.

He initially faced 92 charges of fraud for bringing fictitious applications to court to compel the Department of Social Development to consider and decide on various beneficiaries’ applications for social grants.

He was sentenced to a fine of R100 000 in 2014. He did not appeal his conviction.

The Law Society brought an application in the Grahamstown High Court in May to have Mpambaniso struck off the roll of attorneys.

The society argued that Mpambaniso was not a fit and proper person to operate as an attorney.

Mpambaniso asked the court to impose a period of suspension from practice instead of being struck from the roll of attorneys.

The court has‚ however‚ found that Mpambaniso has failed to discharge the onus resting upon him to demonstrate that “he was wrongly convicted or that there were circumstances which reduced the degree of his blameworthiness to such an extent that‚ despite the conviction‚ he ought to be allowed to continue to practice as an attorney”.

Mpambanisa was admitted as an attorney in 1994.

He committed the offences in 2003.

These involved duping various indigent or disabled people into attaching signatures or fingerprints to documents which Mpambaniso submitted to court ostensibly on their behalf for social grants to be issued to them.

– TMG Digital