Globally, when lawyers are criticised for engaging in immoral behaviour, it is usually suggested that the legal profession is peculiar in attracting individuals who lack moral fibre.
Thus, the onus of policing lawyers lies on law associations which should strive to uphold high morals in the profession to ensure it continues being held in high esteem.
However, the law profession in Zambia is in disarray, raising serious questions on its integrity.
By and large, lawyers in Zambia are now perceived as narcissistic, greedy, self-serving, callous, materialistic and unsympathetic.
Even the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) needs to clean up its house to retain the respect lawyers commanded in yesteryears.
It is sad to note this development since before independence, when there were few Zambian lawyers as the legal profession was a closed shop open only to expatriates mainly from the United Kingdom (UK) and the Republic of Ireland, the profession commanded respect.
The only qualified indigenous lawyers then were FitzPatrick Chuula, SC, Daniel Lisulo, SC, Mainza Chona, SC and Edward J. Shamwana SC, now all deceased.
The rest who included Mr Sebastian Zulu,  SC, Mr Justice G.B. Muwo, who later became the first Zambian High Court judge in 1969, late Andrew Kasonde, Africa Bruce Munyama and C. F. Kamalondo (former Lusaka City Council Town Clerk).
These included former Chief Justice Annel M. Silungwe, the late Deputy Chief Justice Bonaventure K. Bweupe, retired Supreme Court judge Frederick M. Chomba, SC, and Mr Zulu, SC, were men of high integrity.
To practise as a lawyer then, one had to pass a preliminary examination set by the Council of Legal Education in London (something similar to Zambia Institute of Advanced Legal Education-ZIALE) before they could be admitted to join one of the Honourable of Societies of Grey’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, Middle Temple and Inner Temple.
There were few cases of professionals cheating clients, failure to explain the law to the public and other legal malpractices that have now characterised the profession.
We are warning LAZ that the public has been watching this sad development since the law association has now become maggoty to the core. One wonders whether LAZ is an extension of an invisible political party or it is a political party itself.
The degeneration which has been calcifying since 1991 has now hardened, calling for massive surgery of the judicial system in Zambia.
We have gone back to the time when the late President Michael Sata advised the then Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) president James Banda to desist from deliberately misleading the country on matters of governance.
Mr Sata said there was a rising trend by Mr Banda to issue political and unwarranted statements by purposely interpreting speeches from the Executive out of context.
Recently, LAZ has been caught up in its own net of misrepresenting and misinterpreting legal issues such as the constitution, the continued working of ministers, the referendum, the tribunal, to mention but a few, raising concerns among the public as to whether LAZ could be trusted or not. The question now on the lips of ordinary Zambians is: “Is LAZ still necessary?” we leave it to LAZ to exculpate itself.
Now the Patriotic Front (PF) Media Committee and Publicity Vice-Chairperson Sunday Chanda has recently observed that it was irresponsible for the LAZ to promote lawlessness on the constitution making process.
Addressing journalists during a press briefing in Lusaka, Mr Chanda rightly observed that it was regrettable for LAZ to act like the Grand Coalition and NGOCC, which he dismissed as not being professional bodies.
Mr Chanda said most people expected LAZ to take a leading role in opening up the debate on the draft Constitution so that the country could come up with a new Constitution.
His recent scathing attacks on LAZ president Linda Kasonde, the latter who ignorantly said the rule of law had broken down in the country, needs support from all progressive Zambians. What rule of law has been broken?
Like Mr Chanda, we feel Ms Kasonde was not only exposing her ignorance, but embarrassing the already despised legal fraternity in Zambia.
We say so because her recent press event was nothing if not shallow and devoid of legal grounding.
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with Ms Kasonde defending the tax defaulting Post newspaper, she must do so by furnishing the public with facts based on law, but her statements have left ordinary Zambians more confused than before.
Ms Kasonde said at a Press briefing at the LAZ secretariat in Lusaka on Monday that the action by the tax authority on The Post, which owes ZRA more than K53 million in unpaid taxes, was illegal. What is legal then?
Her interpretation has put herself and LAZ in the firing range from both legal and non-legal citizens since in her defence of The Post that owes poor Zambian tax payers more than K53 million or US$5.1 million, she has exposed LAZ’s lack of knowledge of the law.
Like several like-minded and biased lawyers, she incoherently referred to a court order, a document  allegedly issued by a Revenue  Appeals Tribunal, but which could not bind as the institution was repealed and replaced by the Tax Appeals Tribunal.
Secondly, there is no ruling that can be made to overrule the Supreme Court ruling, so we wonder, like Mr Chanda, what Ms Kasonde means when she claims a legally binding court order was defied.
We are not lawyers, so we expect simple and convincing explanation or justification from our learned colleagues, not legal jargons only understood by themselves.
Thirdly, the Post Newspaper she is allegedly supporting is a tax offender like many other companies and people.
Unless LAZ and Kasonde are saying in law some companies are legally right to evade tax, then we question why the Supreme Court wasted time to adjudicate the Post/ZRA case, especially knowing that a lower case can overrule its decision.
We can go on to point out more fallacies in LAZ’s overzealous statements and we can only conclude that either there is overexcitement in its leaders or the professional body has lost its mandate and direction because it has been infiltrated by lawyers with hidden motives, political or selfish.
With these glaring anomalies in interpreting the law, we still ask the questions: Do we need LAZ? Where is the LAZ that spoke one voice and helped ordinary people to interpret the law? Has LAZ become a political party?
We leave it to the learned lawyers to salvage LAZ from a dungeon of abhorred and cursed bodies.