Pretoria- After realising that most consumers were swindled by debt collectors, senior attorney and lecturer Stephan van der Merwe pursued his LLD and successfully defended his dissertation on debt collection – the first doctoral study of its kind in this field.
Van der Merwe completed his LLD within two years at Stellenbosch University while still in full-time employment.
His legal journey started in the 1990s after he completed a BComm in law 1996, he went on to complete an LLB in 1998 and an LLM (cum laude) in 2005, all qualifications were obtained at Stellenbosch University.
“I was attracted to law because of its social justice element," explains Van der Merwe. “I was aware of the fact that there are people who are less fortunate, and that I was in a position to study and use the opportunities I have to assist people,” he said.
In 2001, he joined the Law Clinic, this was the year after he was admitted as an attorney.
During his time in the practice he was approached by workers about court judgements and the emolument attachment orders issued against them after they were granted loans.
“When they came to see me, they had repaid their loans four times already, but deductions were still being made against their wages. I contacted the creditors, and it became obvious that there was exploitation.”
He said he dealt with hundreds of cases over the next decade.
“There are still loopholes…There's still a battle to be fought, and I'm involved in that.”
Van der Merwe estimates that billions of rands have been over deducted from consumers in over the last 30 to 40 years.
“It won't be an easy process to stop predators, but it's a battle worth fighting," said.
His doctorate – titled Developing a Procedural Framework for Advanced Debtor Protection: The Case of Emolument Attachment Orders – is part of his ongoing efforts.
“Hopefully my research can bring about further legislative change, my doctorate proposes what we should do in terms of developing a further framework to stop debtor exploitation through emolument attachments."
He suggested that a new Act be promulgated to deal uniformly with emolument attachment orders.
“The lack of a comprehensive Act means the current legislation is very fragmented, leaving vulnerable debtors open to abuse."
One of his career highlights came in 2019 when he filed action on behalf of thousands of consumers in response to complaints about a number of websites related to the company Lifestyle Legal.
The company allegedly misled consumers into entering agreements for unwanted services under the pretext of offering loans or free loan-finding services.
The matter is now with the Constitutional Court.
In addition to his work as the senior supervising attorney at the Law Clinic, he also teaches law. Since 2003, he has been responsible for the Law Clinic's clinical legal education module and has also taught legal ethics and civil procedure in the Faculty of Law.
He completed a postgraduate diploma in Higher Education Teaching and Learning (cum laude) in 2017 and was awarded Stellenbosch University's Institutional Teaching Excellence Award in the “Scholarly Teacher" category in 2019.
He is currently a member of the International Association of Legal Ethics and a Fellow of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism, which is based at Georgia State University in the United States.
IOL