LAZ grows cold feet again
THE case in which three lawyers have petitioned the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ), for attempting to reprimand them over their comments on a matter of public interest, failed to take off again yesterday.
Since commencement of the matter a few months ago, LAZ has failed to respond to the petitioners’ arguments and now wants an amicable settlement with them.
The petitioners, who include senior constitutional lawyer Hobday Kabwe, Makebi Zulu, and Anna Mwitwa-Mwewa, petitioned the LAZ Council after it summoned them to answer to allegations of abrogating regulations on public commentary and argued that they were protected by the Republican Constitutional on their freedom of expression.
When the matter came up yesterday before High Court Judge Maria Mapani Kawimbe, LAZ only sent its lawyer Nellie Mutti to inform the court that they were pursuing an amicable settlement with the petitioners.
Ms. Mutti then applied for an adjournment to give them chance to continue exploring an amicable settlement.
But the petitioners opposed the application and requested that the matter should proceed and that if the adjournment was granted, costs should be against LAZ.
Justice Kawimbe then adjourned the matter to November 29, 2017 for the parties to discuss and ordered costs against LAZ.
In their petition, the petitioners argued that it was unconstitutional for LAZ to reprimand them over their comments on a matter of public interest.
They criticised LAZ and asked the association to justify its decision to pay legal fees for lawyer Nchima Nchito, in a case he was cited for personating an advocate of the Post Newspapers Limited in liquidation.
They also asked for justification for the politically partisan stance the association had taken on a number of national issues.
The trio contested that freedom of expression was a constitutional right guaranteed under the Zambian Constitution, as their right to hold an opinion and communicate ideas as legal practitioners and citizens respectively.
“We recently on diverse dates continued to exercise our constitutional right to freedom of expression by contributing to a debate on a matter of public interest and concern by criticising the respondent’s decision to use our association finances to fund the legal costs in the defence of one of the legal practitioners namely Mr Nchima Nchito, who was facing criminal charges for alleged impersonation in the subordinate courts in Lusaka.