Mnangagwa govt goes after lawyers

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has torched another storm after his top aide sensationally claimed that some white-run law firms affiliated to the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) were being used as conduits to channel money to opposition parties as part of the West's regime change agenda.

Presidential spokesperson George Charamba claimed on Twitter yesterday that government would unleash security agencies to probe the law firms in question and the lawyers' body.

This came a few weeks after Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi accused some of the country's judges of taking orders from hostile foreign nations to pass judgments against government.

Charamba threatened to unleash the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) on LSZ financials and "white law firms" that are against government.

"Why does this racially fastidious auditor of professional conduct of lawyers so wilfully blind to this yelling anomaly which has persisted for decades? Shouldn't Zacc move in to ask basic questions to both the society and the firm in question? Or higher bodies, now that State security is involved?" he tweeted

"Here we go: There's a prominent white law firm whose books have gone unchecked for donkey years, including by the falsely punctilious Law Society of Zimbabwe which busily harasses indigenous law firms ironically in the name of protecting them."

Charamba went on to allege that the white law firms were a conduit for foreign monies which funded the activities of the opposition in Zimbabwe.

"We have mechanisms for detecting such subterfuges. What I can't suffer or countenance is a statutory body purporting to represent officers of the court turning the same members who make it up - or should - into vicarious subversives," he said.

Asked by NewsDay to clarify his tweets, Charamba curtly said: "Wait my friend. I have a serious assignment to do."

LSZ spokesperson Richard Chidza declined to comment on Charamba's latest allegations saying the statement issued on Saturday should suffice.

"A decision has been made that the statement issued on Saturday will suffice. We aren't going to be involved in a public fight with anyone," Chidza said.

In its statement last Saturday, the LSZ said it was being vilified for challenging Constitutional Amendments (No 1) and (No 2) Acts.

"It is clear from the provisions of the law that the Law Society has not veered from its objects amid inferences to the contrary by some characters that are aimed at soiling the image of the profession, the society and its membership. The decision to challenge the two amendments is within the remit of the Law Society's objects of existence as provided for in section 53 of the Legal Practitioners Act," the statement read.

The two constitutional amendments were challenged by different lawyers as they were seen to be facilitating Mnangagwa's consolidation of power.