Current LAZ leadership prejudiced, says Sunday Chanda

Tue, 28 Mar 2017 10:31:23 +0000

By BENNIE MUNDANDO

THE eminent creation of multiple law associations may not be a direct assault or aimed at crippling the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) but it is motivated by the lacklustre and partiality of the current crop of leaders under Linda Kasonde, says PF media committee member Sunday Chanda has observed.

Mr. Chanda said while he agreed with Ms. Kasonde’s statement that the association had existed long before she ascended to its presidency, she should also ask herself why there was a lot of resentment and dissatisfaction from the public on how she had been running the association compared to her predecessors.

He said while there was no time in the history of Zambia that those in power never clashed with the association on a number of issues which invited sharp reactions and debates.

But the current LAZ leadership fell too far from the desired standard as it was lacking a credible people capable of providing sound guidance to the legal matters that affected Zambia.

“The eminent creation of multiple law associations must firstly be attributed to the Linda Kasonde-led executive and its polarising leadership style,

“ I agree with Ms. Kasonde when she says that the association has always existed even before she got there. But the self-introspection needed why there had never been any talk of multiplicity of law associations with past LAZ executives.

“It is public knowledge that there have been times in the history of LAZ and governments in office not to agree on issues to the point of engaging in vicious debate and sharp contradictions but never has the nation witnessed lack of quality leadership from LAZ that is there today.

Mr Chanda said unless the Linda Kasonde-led executive would want us to believe that they were the most effective and vibrant in the history of the association.

He charged that there was no debate about the fact that the failure of the current LAZ leadership had instigated others to lobby for other law associations to break the monotonous and monumental bulldozing of corporate decisions which seemed to be premised on fixing those perceived to be its enemies.

He said while creation of multiple law associations had advantages such as providing lawyers with an alternative there were also consequences that the country maybe faced with divided voice of lawyers

“All these consequences will be blamed on the current LAZ if and when other associations came on board for its ineptness,

He said it was laughable to have an association which celebrated clauses that took away freedoms of lawyers such as preventing them from exercising the fundamental freedom of speech by coming up with those that could use to silence other lawyers.