By Dickson Jere
Upon clearing his ZIALE Bar Examination, as Repeater, a student was barred from being admitted to the Bar on account of not having a certified copy of his law degree – a prerequisite to practice law in Zambia.
When he enquired as to why he was removed from the list of those to be admitted to the Bar by the Chief Justice, he was told by ZIALE that he ought to have produced his law degree.
Further, that there were allegations that he forged his transcript of results and his employer ZAF was the complainant who notified ZIALE.
This prompted him to sue ZIALE in the Constitutional Court arguing that he was being discriminated as other students who were admitted merely produced transcript of results and not degrees.
He also wanted compensation as he has been denied being lawyer since 2022 and that his intake mates were now his seniors and that was affecting him mentally.
He contended that ZIALE should have reported the matter to law enforcement agencies to investigate him if he had committed any offense.
The Constitutional Court heard the case and determined it saying ZIALE has powers to institute investigations on students and former students as provided for under the law.
“The Petitioner also alleges that the Respondent refusal to call him to the Bar on the basis of his transcript of results and certification of the results by ZAQA when the same procedure was not applied to many of his intake mates,” the Judges stated.
“The Petitioner has failed to prove his claims as regards constitutional breaches to entitle him to the declaratory and other remedies he seeks in his petition,” the ConCourt Judges ruled.
The ConCourt, however, urged ZIALE to speed up the investigations into this matter even though there was no timeframe given in the law for such cases.
“Despite the unfortunate circumstances, the delay does not translate into a constitutional issue,” the Judges said.
Read the case of Elijah Simbai v Zambia Institute of Advanced Legal Education (ZIALE) Council and Others – 2023/CCZ/0023 and Judgement delivered last month.
