Corporate Legal Services Department
The department focuses its resources on ensuring the sustainable proper governance systems and processes focusing on promoting principles of good governance to strengthen compliance to applicable legislation and regulations throughout the CoE, enabling oversight, accountability and enhancing governance processes in the CoE thereby building institutional confidence. The IDP linkage is to strengthen a high-performance organizational culture as part of the Governance Cluster.
This is attained by focusing on all legal matters of Council in specialised fields such as Supply Chain Management; Intellectual Property; Housing and Development; Contract and compliance Management; Municipal Court operations; Infrastructure; legal research; Departmental / Entity legal support and, Organisational support which includes litigation. All these components contribute directly to the effective corporate governance towards capacitating the City.
Vision
Corporate Legal Services department is a proactive, professional and responsive legal advisory service enterprise.Mission
Corporate Legal Services department renders legal advice and enhances governance processes within the Constitutional framework of South Africa and the Municipality by providing innovative, qualitative, precise and clear legal advisory services, guided by the principles of good corporate governance.Values
In pursuing the abovementioned Vision and Mission, the department is committed to upholding the core values and principles: Professional Ethics; Performance Excellence; Honesty and Integrity; Accountability; Good Corporate Governance, and Seamless legal advice.Description of the Departmental Core Business
The Department is an enterprise mandated to drive innovative, precise, clear, proactive, professional and responsive qualitative legal advisory services across the CoE including its Entities, Property Developers (services agreements and related issues), service providers, e.g. contracted Attorneys and other Contractors, Ekurhuleni Community, Courts, Chapter 9 Institutions, Regulatory Bodies etc. It exists to interpret, analyse and coordinate the adherence to all relevant legislation by the City to ensure that the Municipality is governed in accordance with relevant legislative prescripts by seeking to entrench the discipline of legal compliance in all Council processes as a stream. This it does by promoting principles of good governance to strengthen compliance to applicable legislation and regulations throughout the CoE, enabling oversight, accountability and enhancing governance processes in the Ekurhuleni thereby building institutional confidence.
Divisions
Office of the HoD
Advocate Kemi Behari heads up the department as HoD. The Department’s main objective is to institutionalise legal compliance guided by the following principles:
- To create a regulatory environment that enhances the capacity of the municipality to deliver consistent and qualitative legal advisory services;
- To ensure compliance with legislation applicable to Local Government throughout the COE and municipal Entities
- To review the improvement and expansion of the governance model support to facilitate the implementation of the separation of powers;
- To strengthen the legal support service to the organization;
- To increase levels of legal compliance throughout the COE and within its Entities, and,
- To reduce legal costs on cases by and against Council.
Support Services
The key strategic thrusts of this function are to coordinate, develop, plan and drive an overall support services strategy of the Corporate Legal Services Department, incorporating overall administrative financial practices by ensuring compliance with organisational administration, SCM Policy, accounting practices and the City’s records management. This function also renders a compliance support function with disseminating information on the latest approved By-laws, Tariffs and Policies; administering the Grant-in-Aid scheme and requests for information in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA).
City Secretariat Services
The key strategic thrusts of this function is the overall responsibility of the City Secretariat functions including the SMT and Mayoral Committee and its Sub-Committees.
Municipal Courts, By-law enforcement, Compliance management
The key strategic thrusts of this function are, with continuous improvement as the goal and employing a strategic approach, this role develops, monitors, advises on and makes representation regarding municipal courts operations, by-law enforcement and compliance and contract management, ensuring compliance with legislation.
