SDA lawyers want to drag LAZ to court

SEVENTH Day Adventist Church (SDA) lawyers on April 23 threatened to take legal action against the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) if it insisted on holding its Annual General Meetings (AGMs) on Saturdays. This year's AGM was held on April 25 and the SDA lawyers expected LAZ to change the timing of future meetings.

Lusaka-based lawyer, Kelvin Hang’andu said in a letter to the LAZ honorary secretary and copied to the media that SDA lawyers could not attend the AGM because of their religious conviction that all secular activities were forbidden on Saturdays, Sabbath Day.

Mr Hang’andu claimed the LAZ had previously spurned two petitions submitted to the association by individual members of the SDA that politely requested a rescheduling of the AGM in order to accommodate their involvement.

“By reason thereof, we cannot so far as send proxies for that purpose because that amounts to inciting third parties to profane the Sabbath which is holy unto the Lord God Almighty,” he said.

Citing Exodus 20: 8-11 of the Holy Bible, Mr Hang’andu said he had revived the petitions and the in-coming LAZ president and the council should take up the request to alter the annual calendar of the AGM to a neutral day not involving the Sabbath.

He said LAZ had in the past operated as a closed shop against SDA lawyers and that could be understood to have willfully disenfranchised them from its annual elections, review of its audited accounts and the enactment of vital policy changes in the profession.

This was not only out-rightly unjust but also un-brotherly and unconstitutional because the freedom from religious intolerance and discrimination and the rights of association and assembly were imminent constitutional canons in Zambia.

“LAZ is guilty of abrogating them all against SDA lawyers, of which I am a member. LAZ must decisively break with the past at the April 25 AGM or risk legal action by constitutional petition or a motion for judicial review,” he said.

Mr Hang’andu, however, endorsed the candidature of Mr Stephen Lungu as LAZ president because of his ability to re-direct the malaise posture taken by the association regarding key professional matters, especially delayed justice and absence of verbatim court recorders. He said the past presidents had ignored the fundamental matters because court proceedings recorded by judges in longhand could not accurately bear evidence and could inevitably result in mistrials.