Maravi

Lawyers and the growth of our society

Lawyers and the growth of our society
By The Post
Fri 06 May 2011, 04:00 CAT

WE welcome the new Law Association of Zambia executive. But in doing so, we would also like to give credit to the outgoing Law Association of Zambia executive for taking a number of correct positions on many difficult governance questions that faced our country.

As Attorney General Abyudi Shonga correctly observed, heading the Law Association of Zambia is no casual feat as it is simply not an easy undertaking.

The outgoing Law Association of Zambia executive was faced with a lot of difficult subjective and objective factors. But they did not fail to take the right position on all the key issues. Of course, more could have been done and done better. Now this is where the responsibility of the new executive begins – to do more and in a better way. That’s how life is; it is a continuous process of improving on our performance.

The new Law Association of Zambia leadership has pledged to speak for the law and to give timely and impartial advice and to do so courageously. This is how things should be. This is what the Law Association of Zambia was created for. It was established to, among other things, “seek the advancement of the rule of law and of the rights and liberties of the individual”.

This, in our view, is one of the most important objectives of the Law Association of Zambia. The rule of law is cardinal to the stability and progress of our country. And the rule of law entails the right to equality before the law or equal protection of the law. This is fundamental to any just and democratic society. Whether rich or poor, political majority or religious minority, political ally of those in power or opponent – all are entitled to equal protection before the law.

The democratic state cannot guarantee that life will treat everyone equally, and it has no responsibility to do so. However, under no circumstances should those in power impose additional inequalities; they should be required to deal evenly and equally with all our people. No one is above the law, which is, after all, the creation of the people, not something imposed upon them. When laws are established by the people who then have to obey them, both law and democracy are served.

And independence of the judiciary is an essential pillar supporting the rule of law. It is not enough to say that the courts should follow and apply the laws faithfully and equally to all. One must, in addition, demand that there should be no abuse by anyone of the process of the law.

The Law Association of Zambia is a very important institution of our people. We say this because it was not only established to serve the narrow professional interests of lawyers but to deal with broader issues of society. According to the Law Association of Zambia Act, the objects for which the association was established are, among others, “to further the development of law as an instrument of social order and social justice and as an essential element in the growth of society;

to provide a means by which all lawyers, whatever their particular field of activity, can participate together fully and effectively in the development of society and its institutions; to encourage lawyers as individuals to join actively in the life of, and identify themselves with the people, and to utilise their skills and training in their service; to cooperate with the representative bodies of other professions and other institutions to promote research in the development of the law;

to promote the reform of the law, both by the amendment of and the removal of imperfections in existing law, and by the reformation, codification or restatement of particular branches of the law; to participate when called upon in draft legislation, and to strengthen the machinery of the critical examination of its legal quality;

to promote the improvement and reform of the judicial and administrative systems, including tribunals and their procedure; to protect and assist the public in all matters touching, ancillary or incidental to the legal profession; and to do all such other things as may be conducive to the attainment of the foregoing objects or any of them”.

This is in addition to what we have already stated about the Law Association of Zambia being tasked by law “to seek the advancement of the rule of law and of the rights and liberties of the individual”. This is a lot of work and responsibility.

The law literally tasks the Law Association of Zambia to deal with almost everything that affects society. And it shouldn’t be forgotten that every aspect of our lives from the day we are born, where we are born to the day we die and where we are buried are affected by law.

If the Law Association of Zambia performed these duties well, we would certainly have a better society, a more fair, just and humane society. Probably this explains why George Kunda and his friends have been trying very hard to assume hegemony over the Law Association of Zambia by trying to influence its electoral processes.

It is not a secret that they tried to influence the outcome of the just-ended Law Association of Zambia elections by trying to influence lawyers working for the government to vote according to their preferences. However, this failed. It failed for many reasons. First, because now lawyers working for the government know what type of people they are and what they stand for; they know their evil schemes.

Second, it is a serious lack of respect for them to treat lawyers working for the government as robots without the ability to think and act for themselves. They are now resented and whoever they support is bound to lose. How can George’s candidate win at the Law Association of Zambia Annual General Meeting when he himself failed to secure the MMD vice-presidency?

They had to abolish the post of MMD vice-president just to save him from an impending humiliating defeat. George should by now know that manipulation has its limits and that manipulators have never deserved anybody’s respect or been successful anywhere. Manipulators are like little sailboats that go with the wind and the waves. Manipulation is synonymous with opportunism. Manipulation doesn’t have substance; it doesn’t have roots.

And this is how George and his friends will sink. We wonder how they intend to live in this country outside power, outside the powerful public offices they are today abusing and thinking they will remain there forever. It is difficult to understand how they intend to live with all these wrong things they are doing, wrong decisions they are taking every day.

With men like George in power, we need a very courageous Law Association of Zambia executive to protect society from their abuses. George has destroyed the credibility of our entire judicial process and to a very large extent, the standing of our judiciary. George thinks he is powerful or omnipotent. But it’s just a matter of time; he will soon be shown that the power he thinks is his does not actually belong to him.

We therefore urge the new Law Association of Zambia executive to courageously follow up all the issues that were started by the outgoing executive and ensure that our people get a government and build a society they deserve.

There are still many outstanding issues that deserve the Law Association of Zambia’s serious attention. There is the issue of the constitution on which George wasted over K200 billion of taxpayers’ money thinking he would manage to bulldoze the whole process to the end without seeking consensus from those who disagreed with him. We also have the issue of the electoral process.

There are many issues that need to be cleared for us to have peaceful, free and fair elections this year. And these include the issue of parallel vote tabulation on which the Law Association of Zambia has already expressed a clear opinion but those in government still insist that they are not going to allow it, it’s illegal.
We urge all our people to give the Law Association of Zambia all the support it needs so that it can serve them better.

Labels: ABYUDA SHONGA, LAWYERS, LAZ

posted by MrK @ 3:05 PM