The Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) has threatened to approach the High Court seeking an order banning unregistered lawyers from conducting debt collection services.
By Tinotenda Munyukwi
Addressing journalists in Harare on Friday, LSZ president Misheck Hogwe said debt collection was a preserve for registered lawyers with valid practicing certificates and time had come to halt the operations of dubious characters plying the trade.
“What debt collectors do is legal work and in terms of the Legal Practitioners Act, only a registered lawyer with a practicing certificate is entitled to do legal work. So, as far as we are concerned a, debt collectors have no legal framework within which to operate,” he said.
“Debt collectors are unregulated and members of the public cannot be continuously subjected to an unregulated lot. As law society, we have since resolved to make an application in our own right to the High Court for an order declaring, in particular, that debt collectors have no mandate to do legal work.”
Due to the worsening economic situation, citizens have often found themselves at the mercy of debt collectors who attach their properties for resale to recover amounts owed to various institutions, mostly local authorities.
