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The Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) under attack
Southern Africa Litigation Centre
August 16, 2006

http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20060816090511903

The Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) expresses concern at the increasing attack by the Zimbabwean government on the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ).

An article published in Zimbabwe's The Sunday Mail on 6 August 2006 and another in the Zimbabwean Herald on 12 August 2006 make plain the Zimbabwean government's intention to clamp down on the Law Society, an independent and self-regulating professional body of Zimbabwean lawyers.

The first article written by Tafataona Mahoso, chairman of the government-controlled Media and Information Commission, and titled, 'Lawyers' body fights for return of Rhodesia', accuses the LSZ of being sponsored by foreign powers. Mahoso writes that 'the LSZ has consistently encouraged and worked with external forces and organisations opposed to Zimbabwe's African land reclamation movement.'

The article by Mahoso is particularly sinister for its exhortation that Zimbabwe must 'figure out what it wants Government to do with the LSZ', suggesting that government action against the LSZ is imminent, despite the fact that the law society's independence and self-regulation is ensured by statute.

The second article, titled 'A Lawless Society', was written under the byline 'Nathanial Manheru', which is said to be the pseudonym of President Mugabe's current spokesman, George Charamba, widely tipped to be the country's next Minister of Information.

It is even more disturbing. Not only does it make reference to a vague 'operation' that is intended against the LSZ, but it expresses the hope that the operation will be 'replaced by its equally concussing sequel meant to make foreign opposition funding forbiddingly expensive.' This is a clear reference to Zimbabwe's NGO Bill, passed in 2004, which bans foreign ngos as well as foreign funding of local ngos. President Mugabe has yet to sign the bill but the author seems to be signalling that he will soon do so.

Both articles seek to discredit the LSZ by pointing to its recent challenge to Zimbabwe's money laundering legislation, insisting that the LSZ was motivated by its own interest in fermenting economic and political instability. In fact, the action was motivated by a desire to protect lawyer-client confidentiality, independence of the legal profession and of the judiciary and follows on a long tradition in the LSZ of acting for its members and their professional interests but also in the public interest.

Following so close on each other, the articles seem a co-ordinated attempt to discredit the LSZ in the eyes of ordinary Zimbabweans, but also to threaten the LSZ with more repressive action should it continue its opposition to the Zimbabwean government. As Arnold Tsunga, Secretary of the LSZ, explains: 'The legal profession has largely been standing in between the unbridled power of the state and the people of Zimbabwe and offering a safety net to human rights defenders facing persecution. It therefore comes as little surprise that the state is now angling itself for an attack on the independence and self regulation of the legal profession in Zimbabwe.'

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