Our Profession, Our People
9 September 2016 · LawTalk 896
Opportunity to meet Nelson Mandela By Nick Butcher Lawyer Eben Kitching, who hails from South Africa, is a New Zealand Law Society Inspector, but before he landed on New Zealand shores 14 years ago, he specialised in public and tax law, financial investigations and conveyancing. A large chunk of the conveyancing work was buried in land resettlement work in the post-apartheid era for local councils established by the late President Nelson Mandela. “I had the opportunity to meet Mr Mandela and it’s a memory that will stay with me until the end of my days. An amazing man, he was so relaxed and made you feel as if it was a pleasure for him to make your acquaintance,” he says. Mr Kitching was born in Uitenhage, the city close to Port Elizabeth and probably best known for having the largest Volkswagen factory on the African continent. Uitenhage is also home to 1960s South African pop group, The Invaders. That band formed after local man Johnny Burke was musically inspired following a visit to the city in 1961 by Cliff Richards and the Shadows. When Eben and his family moved to New Zealand, he had his sights set on getting the full Kiwi experience. He wanted to get to know the country on a personal level and that meant understanding the unique Māori culture.
Kiwi experience begins with understanding the language “When I came here my children were amazed by the street names. Many of them were in Māori. It reminded us of
the Xhosa language we spoke in South Africa. The pronunciations were similar to Xhosa. So we learned to pronounce all the Māori street names, town and building names we came across and in time it just became habit.” Xhosa is one of the 11 official languages in South Africa and is spoken by over seven million people. It was Nelson Mandela’s first language. Mr Kitching was admitted in 1985, following the legal footsteps of his late father Joseph who practised law, establishing Kitchings Inc in 1947 after serving in the Air Force during World War 2. And younger brother, Arnold Kitching
is still running the family business, practising law there nearly 70 years later. Mr Kitching began his career as a commercial lawyer, and then went on to specialise in tax and financial investigations and was admitted to practice in New Zealand in 2003. But looking back at his South African days, it was the work that he did in later years as legal advisor of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality that was some of the most satisfying. He credits his father Joseph for fighting for the rights of black South African people. That was “a legacy that my late father
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