Errant lawyer’s wife also disbarred

DISBARRED medical-legal lawyer Zuko Nonxuba’s wife has also been struck from the roll of attorneys - partly stemming from the same allegations that landed her husband in hot water.

Nonxuba was accused of stealing millions from disabled children mostly in the Eastern Cape.  Novelwano Nonxuba, at the time of the millions going missing, worked at her husband’s law firm before she left and opened her own. The Legal Practice Council (LPC) had also brought an application against her before the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.

Most of the cases where money went missing involved parents of children who sustained birth injuries because of negligence on the part of medical personnel during the birth process, resulting in loss of oxygen, foetal distress and, ultimately, cerebral palsy.

Zuko Nonxuba represented the children who were found to have suffered debilitating mental and physical harm because of the negligence of personnel of the Eastern Cape Health Department. 

In all five claims, the MEC for Health was ordered to pay over R348 million in damages to Nonxuba's law firm, which, in turn, the firm had to establish trusts to administer the monies for the benefit of the disabled children, which was not done.

In the latest case against Novelwano Nonxuba, the court found that she is as responsible for the theft of the trust monies as her husband. Judges Nolumtu Bam and Norman Davis ordered her to surrender her certificate of enrolment as an attorney within two weeks.

After she was admitted as an attorney in February 2018, she worked alongside her husband at Nonxuba Incorporated Attorneys. 

Three years later, she commenced practice for her own account under the name of N A Nonxuba Incorporated Attorneys. She was suspended from practice last year by this court, pending finalisation of the present proceedings.

The charges of misconduct levelled against her by the LPC concern the same facts as those levelled against her husband, regarding the five court orders that damages must be paid towards the five children, but they never received the money.

The Nonxubas apparently never told the families what had happened to the money. It is the LPC’s case that the funds - running into multi-millions - were stolen from the trust account. 

It is also alleged that Novelwano Nonxuba failed to disclose what happened to the money. Her defence was that she did not know what happened in her husband’s trust account affairs. She demanded evidence, claiming that the LPC had not performed an audit of the second respondent’s (husband’s firm) trust banking account.

“How the first respondent (Nonxuba) was able to paddle two canoes of not knowing what was going on in the trust account, and at the same time, refute the claims of theft and impropriety in the management of the trust account of the second respondent, remains unexplained,” the court said.

It was also noted that the families of the five children are meanwhile living in poverty.

“Their families are without resources to provide them with the support they need,” the court said. It was also noted that there are currently 24 claims lodged against the husband’s law firm, amounting to more than R204 million.

The court further commented that throughout these proceedings, Nomvelwano did not show any remorse or willingness to take responsibility for the stolen money.

The court also noted that her own firm has not been in existence for very long, yet its bookkeeping was in a state of disarray with no client files maintained. A curator was meanwhile appointed to administer the two trust accounts of the law firms - that of her husband and her own.

Cape Times