MR DU PLESSIS
Thank you Chairperson, may I just place myself on record?  It's Roelof du Plessis of the Pretoria Bar on instructions of Strydom Britz Attorneys, I act on behalf of Mr Labuschagne.  Before I call Mr Labuschagne, I just want to place a few facts on record, for purposes of the record and just to make things clear. Our client, Mr Labuschagne, in his negotiations with the South African Police Services and the State Attorney, he requested the services of an attorney and counsel to represent him at this hearing.  That request was turned down notwithstanding the fact that there is an existing agreement with the State Attorney and the South African Police Service in that regard.  It seems to us and I'm making this statement on behalf of Mr Labuschagne, that there is currently a discriminatory practice
in respect of the provision of legal services to certain applicants. Some applicants are provided with the services of an attorney and an advocate and some are not in the same hearings.  We believe that that is discriminatory and we believe that that is also unconstitutional and I want to place that on record.
	The position was that Mr Labuschagne indicated that he will not accept the situation as such and that he will then hold his amnesty application over until such time as he has been afforded the right to be represented by an attorney and counsel.  May I say that the practice in South Africa, as you well know, has been that counsel usually appears only with the assistance of an attorney and this matter and the magnitude of these kind of matters is such that I do not believe that it can be dealt with in any other way.  Mr Labuschagne was thereupon was not represented by either Mr Britz or myself last week during the hearing but we have decided in the spirit of this whole process that Mr Britz and I will, to assist the Committee and to safeguard against a possible later hearing of Mr Labuschagne's application, that we will assist the Committee without the situation in respect of representation of Mr Labuschagne having been sorted out and that is why we are here and I place that on record, Chairperson, we are here to assist you and to assist the process and we do not want to make the process more difficult.  It just seems to us that the attitude of the Police Service and the State Attorney in this instance has really
prolonged this matter and has caused further time delays instead of streamlining the process.  We do not believe that it is to the advantage of justice and to the process that it should be dealt with this way and lastly I want to say that Mr Labuschagne obviously reserves all his rights pertaining to this application, pertaining to the process and pertaining to the fact that he was not represented last week in the way that he should have been represented and that the fact that we are here is no waiver of his rights or any concession in any regard in respect of that.
	May I call Mr Labuschagne?