Bill to ‘dismantle’ LAZ drafted

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 12:30:36 +0000

By Bennie Mundando

A BILL to facilitate the establishment of other law societies apart from the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) has been drafted.

If approved by parliament, the bill, drafted by Kasama central Member of Parliament Kelvin Sampa, will facilitate for the repealing of the LAZ Act CAP 31 to facilitate for the formation and regulation of various law societies or associations.

And National Revolution Party (NRP) has urged MPs to support the bill once presented to parliament to save lawyers from a monotonous fashion of administration perpetuated by LAZ which he said was devoid of credibility and impartiality.

The bill provides legal practitioners a choice to belong to any association of their choice as long as they are ordinarily resident in Zambia and have been admitted as advocates whose names were entered into the roll of practitioners kept under section 5 of the Legal Practitioners Act.

According to the bill, notwithstanding subsection (1), no person in Zambia or anywhere else, who had been suspended from practice or whose name had been struck off a roll of practitioners shall be qualified to become a member unless the period of his suspension had expired or his name had been restored to such a roll.

“Association membership of the law societies shall be open to any person who is in regular attendance at the school of law at any university in Zambia or is a full-time student at a university elsewhere engaged in a programme leading directly to a degree acceptable to the association for the purposes of membership.

“Membership shall also be open to an articled clerk serving under articles of clerkship in accordance with the Legal Practitioners Act or is engaged in a programme of study accepted to the law societies for purposes of associate membership or is a managing clerk employed by a legal practitioner in Zambia,” reads part of his proposal.

The bill further proposes that once the act is enforced, all assets held by LAZ shall be distributed among all law societies in Zambia after the coming into force of the act.

And NRP has urged MPs to support the bill once presented to parliament to save lawyers from a monotonous fashion of administration perpetuated by LAZ which it said was devoid of credibility and partiality.

NRP president Cosmo Mumba said the monopoly held by LAZ was detrimental to the professionalism of the lawyers as they had no alternative choice on which association they should belong to even when they did not agree with what LAZ was doing.

“That proposal is very progressive and I call upon all MPs to support this just cause so that lawyers can act in a free environment where they have a choice unlike the current situation where they are merely at the mercy of one association.

“The current LAZ leadership is highly compromised and this has a knock-on effect on the professionalism of our lawyers. The creation of multiple associations to which lawyers can belong will foster professionalism, credibility, and freedom of choice among practitioners,” Dr. Mumba said.