. Mwenye

By REBECCA MUSHOTA –

THE Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) has said that Attorney General (AG) Musa Mwenye does not need to be sworn in by the President to start performing his duties.

In a statement yesterday, LAZ vice-president Linda Kasonde said a person who had taken oath for an office and subsequently was appointed to another office which had similar duties, did not need to take another oath if the duties of the new office were the same as those of the previous office.

Mr Mwenye was Solicitor General before he was appointed to the office of Attorney General.

“That being the case the current appointed Attorney General does hold the substantive office validly and can subsequently exercise his duties as such,” Ms Kasonde said.

She, however, said the newly-appointed Solicitor-General Abraham Mwansa needed to take oath of office before he started discharging the functions of his office if he had not taken a similar oath previously.

Ms Kasonde said the AG’s office and that of the Solicitor General were public and constitutional offices, where in some instances they acted as ex-officio members of Cabinet other than exercise their duties of
giving Government legal advice.

There was no provision in the Constitution, she said, that required an appointed AG and Solicitor-General to take oath after ratification by Parliament.

However, both offices were public ones and were accountable to the public and preserved the sanctity of the Constitution, therefore, an oath of a person sitting in such an office was vital and mandatory.

Ms Kasonde said it had also been the practice in Zambia that the AG and the Solicitor General took oath of office before they started discharging their duties.

Taking oath had gained the status of law and had become a rule of practice because it had been an unbroken practice since 1964.

Parliament last month ratified the appointment of Mr Mwenye as AG and Lusaka lawyer Abraham Mwansa as Solicitor General.