PRODUCE MORE LAWYERS, CJ TELLS ZIALE

Sat, 16 Dec 2017 11:06:12 +0000

By CHINTU MALAMBO

 THE Judiciary expects to see more lawyers being admitted to the bar in future and the number of students graduating from the Zambia Institute of Advanced Legal Education (ZIALE) to increase from the 40 of the 331 that sat for the 2017 exams.

During the Call Day address in Lusaka yesterday, Chief Justice Irene Mambilima said the Judiciary was admitting an impressive number of candidates who had passed the Bar exam on first attempt but that more needed to be done to improve the number.

“It is highly commendable that for the first time, we are admitting an impressive number of candidates who have passed the Bar exam on first attempt.

“I hope that this is a sign that we will be seeing more lawyers being admitted to the Bar in the future.  However, from the statistics much more still needs to be done. I am informed that out of 331 candidates who sat for the Legal Practitioners Qualifying Examinations (LPQE) in August-September 2017, only 40 of you passed. 291 did not make it,” she said.

Justice Mambilima urged the graduates to uphold professional conduct and to stay on the right side of the ethical line.

“It is not worth coming this far only to fall from grace for professional misconduct, losing your hard-earned practicing certificate and being struck off the roll of legal practitioners.

And Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) president Linda Kasonde said the association was impressed with the number of people that managed to graduate but that it was eager to see the outcome of the efforts that the Ministry of Justice was making towards reforming how ZIALE was run.

Ms Kasonde said LAZ wants to see the pass rates improve but the standards of education at ZIALE maintained.