A file on a public bench is already a kind of pleading.
Section 34 is not a courtesy
Everyone has the right to have a dispute decided in a fair public hearing. That sentence does not say “everyone who could find R8 000 by Thursday”. Fairness to an unrepresented person is not the same as conducting their case for them. It is slower speech, a short explanation of what is about to happen, and a record that shows they were not merely present in the room.
A working method
• Say, in one sentence, what the hearing is for, before anyone is asked to speak.
• Ask whether the person can read the document they have just been handed.
• Legal Aid South Africa, a university law clinic, or a Legal Practice Council help-desk is how section 34 is given a telephone number.
• An admission from an unrepresented accused should be slow. Repeat it. Write it. Ask whether they still mean it.
• Costs against a defendant who did not understand a set-down are rarely a good sentence, even when the Rule allows them.
A court that is only efficient for people who already have counsel is efficient for a very small country. The rest of the Republic is sitting on the wooden bench outside.
A note from Neelan Karikan. The greatest human need is to be understood. A person who arrives without a lawyer is asking for that before they ask for costs, and our authority begins in the way we answer.