‘Zambia most expensive country to afford lawyer’

Tue, 23 May 2017 13:24:01 +0000

By AARON CHIYANZO

ZAMBIA is one of the countries in Africa with the most expensive legal representation, making it almost impossible for an ordinary offender to afford a lawyer, Prisons Care and Counseling Association (PRISCCA) executive director Godfrey Malembeka has observed.

And Dr Malembeka charged that there were more than 4,000 remandees in correctional facilities because the Judiciary was under-staffed.

He explained that there were few High Court judges in the country who were expected to go round in districts presiding over court cases.

Dr Malembeka added that to make matters worse how long a particular judge would stay in a district depended on the resources available at the time.

He said in an interview with the Daily Nation that judges were only able to preside over few cases because of the limitations in time and resources.

“A judge has to travel to different districts to preside over cases. You can image the backlog of cases. They can only preside over a few at a time; that is why we have too many remandees,” he said.

Meanwhile, Dr Malembeka observed that Zambia was one of the most expensive countries to get legal representation.

He said that he had travelled far and wide comparing legal fees in different countries but that Zambia still remained one of the most expensive.

Dr Malembeka wondered why the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) was proposing an increase in legal fees when Zambia was already one of the most expensive.

He said LAZ was ‘‘out of its way’’ and that it should start thinking of reducing the legal fees instead of doing the opposite.

Dr Malembeka charged that the ‘‘suffocating legal fees’’ were the main reason prison facilities were congested.

“I have travelled in other countries and tried to compare their legal fees with ours but we still remain one of the highest,” he said.  He said most of the remandees were still languishing in prisons because of a lack of proper legal representation.

Dr Malembeka noted that the Legal Aid Board and the Judiciary were doing their best to mitigate the situation but that they  were both seriously under-staffed.