PF lawyer Kelvin Bwalya Fube says the LAZ executive has promised to “reform” following the withdrawal of his impeachment motion.

And KBF claims that lawyers collectively observed that “certain things” being done by the LAZ executive were wrong.

Speaking on Muvi TV’s The Assignment programme on Sunday, KBF said the LAZ leadership promised to reform and their performance would be reviewed at the coming Annual General Meeting.

KBF said this after moderator Master Chimbala asked him if his confidence in the association had been mended following Saturday’s Emergency General Meeting.

“I have split hairs there. My confidence in the association has been reinforced by the decision of unity we took yesterday. I believe that the association is strong enough to remain united as a result of what we are going to do at the AGM. And I believe with the guidance of State Counsel, who were involved yesterday and have promised they will be involved at the AGM, we believe we can have a resolution. What I see with the leadership is that we have brought to the fore, to the leadership, ‘you have shortcomings. Because of these short comings, you must improve’; they have promised to reform, they have promised to improve but that can only be seen with time. And these are some of the resolutions that we are going to review at the AGM,” KBF said.

KBF also laughed off reports that he withdrew the motion for fear of it failing, accusing the media of “spinning the truth”.

“That’s not the reason…what I have said is what happened on the floor of the house. When the meeting ended, the president of the association [Linda Kasonde] issued a statement to the media, I was also asked questions and my words were, ‘I have been guided by State Counsel and for the sake of unity, we have decided to take this course of action. Nobody knows what the outcome of that vote could have been. I can’t even tell you, but what I do know is that we had numbers, that I can tell you. I know my numbers, I didn’t know their numbers but I know the numbers that we had and I can confidently speak from that so anybody propagating the notion that we feared a vote is really just whispering in the wind,” KBF said.

Asked if he felt it was better to split the association into several law regulating bodies, KBF said; “at this particular time, no. And this is why we moved the motion because we saw the Private Member’s Bill and some of us got concerned, we said ‘if politicians have come to this stage, what has led them to this stage?’ when we analysed the reasons why they reached at that stage, we said ‘we must involve the association and this is why we moved the motion. And this is another area where this has been spun, to misinform the public to think we the movers of the motion want LAZ disbanded; to the contrary, we are defending the unity of LAZ. We want it to continue and I said that on the floor.”

KBF insisted that his motion was not meant to intimidate anybody.

“I don’t think this was intended to intimidate anybody. The problem we have, and I think I shared this on the floor of the meeting, some members were becoming too strong, too…, what’s the word, can I say emotional without discrediting anybody? They wanted to make it seem as if the messenger bringing the message was wrong, you don’t kill the messenger, the messenger only brings the message and this is the message,” he said.

When reminded that he too had gotten emotional whilst promoting his motion by calling Kasonde immature, KBF said he was not ready to repeat those sentiments.

“In some of the decisions we saw that coming through and when you are getting interviewed, sometimes you get carried away and even you as interviewers sometimes you lead us to say certain things, it is possible that you can get a bit strong in your arguments, that’s a possibility, it is human,” KBF said.

“Those issues will be discussed at the AGM now. I said that yes, but after yesterday, I am not ready to repeat those things until we go to the AGM.”

And KBF claimed that lawyers collectively observed that certain things being done by the LAZ executive were wrong.

“State Counsels present at the meeting had called for time out and they said come, we hear you [the movers of the motion]. We have also heard those objecting to the motion; the common denominator is ‘you are right, these things are not being denied. Let me give you a view of some things that happened on the floor, everybody, including those objecting to the movers of the motion agreed; as a common denominator that the level of administration we were receiving was not correct. And they agreed that certain things done by the executive were not correct; they agreed,” said KBF.

“The real question was, ‘is this enough to impeach the executive? To have a no confidence vote?’ Before we could answer that question by vote? That’s when State Counsels called for time, at least State Counsels present and they said look, there is an admission, but this is like a first offender at law and if we move now, to the next phase which is a vote, we might split the association, divide the association, is that your aim? They went back to the executive and they spoke to them. Then they came back to us and they said ‘okay, we now see where the problem is and we feel these matters can be addressed at the AGM. So magnanimity now is on you as the movers of the motion, you have made your point, but if you really agree with our position that we save the association, that we remain united, we request you that you withdraw the motion before the vote so that we do not divide ourselves’. And as a lover of the association and a member of the association whose been advocating that we remain united, that resonated with me.”