If you’ve been following the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial, which started in April, then you know about controversial advocate Malesela Teffo. Teffo is representing four of the five men accused of murdering the football star in 2014 at his girlfriend’s home in Vosloorus, Johannesburg.

During court proceedings, Teffo has often trended on social media for his outrageous comments. He has told the court that “the situation is f*cked up”; he has accused Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela of practising witchcraft; and he has even gone as far as accusing the Presidency of intimidating him. Teffo did not provide proof of his claims and the Presidency dismissed them as baseless.

Now, the Legal Practice Council (LPC) has filed papers in the Pretoria High Court to have Teffo suspended. Kabelo Letebele, the LPC’s spokesperson, said it had received 22 complaints regarding Teffo’s behaviour between 2019 and 2021.

The LPC is a national statutory body that regulates the affairs of all legal and candidate legal practitioners.

It has asked the court to strike Teffo off the roll of legal practitioners or to order that he is “suspended from practice as a legal practitioner until such time as he satisfies the court that he is fit and proper to practise as such”.

Teffo, who was admitted as an advocate in 2009, has mostly been involved in representing SAPS employees in disciplinary hearings. He was previously a police officer.

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In the court papers, the LPC said it had concluded that Teffo “has made himself guilty of unprofessional or dishonourable or unworthy conduct and is no longer a fit and proper person to continue to practise as a legal practitioner or an officer of the honourable court”. His behaviour had “damaged and affected the good standing and reputation of the profession as a whole”.

When the matter was heard in court on 4 August, News24 reported that Teffo told the Pretoria High Court he had not been given a chance to respond to the complaints. But Acting Judge Thembi Bokako pointed out that the court had in its possession documents that included correspondence confirming that the LPC had sent the documents to him.

Not the first time

According to the court papers, this was not the first time Teffo had received documents and claimed he had not. In 2019, the SAPS and the state attorney sought an urgent interdict against Teffo after he had threatened and assaulted Colonel Sarita Smit and a Brigadier Beukes.

Teffo told the court he had not received the application and was unable to prepare.

However, in a letter Teffo later sent to Elias Mawela, the Gauteng police commissioner, he admitted to receiving the urgent application the day before the matter was heard in court.

“In paragraph 43 the respondent [Teffo] states that he will not waste his time going to court because the judge will automatically dismiss the application,” the court papers say. “This conduct cannot be countenanced and can only be seen as an attempt to mislead the court intentionally,” the LPC concluded in its court papers.

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Another complaint was lodged against Teffo for his behaviour at a disciplinary hearing in September 2015. According to the court papers Teffo “disrupted a disciplinary hearing and insulted the employer representatives. The chairperson moved the hearing to a different venue.”

There was another complaint three months later. Teffo “seized the recording device by force from the chairperson and threatened to hit the chairperson of the disciplinary hearing”.

A criminal case was opened at the Pretoria Central police station. Another complaint was with regard to Teffo’s behaviour in June 2020.

Teffo did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Judgment has been reserved. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.