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Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter
A HARARE lawyer has been cuffed with a three-year suspension from legal practice over paying kickbacks to an official at a city bank to get lucrative legal work from the bank with his law firm under curatorship for the same three years so his other clients do not suffer from his enforced absence.
Sifiso Mugadza pleaded guilty to unprofessional conduct when he appeared before the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Tribunal, chaired by High Court Judge Justice David Mangota.
The Law Society of Zimbabwe, which governs the conduct of lawyers had sought de-registration of Mugadza but scaled down its demands after Mugadza admitted to the charges and moved the tribunal to impose a lesser penalty.
All legal practitioners in private and public practice are sworn in as officers of the High Court, and have a code of ethics that demands complete honesty, reliability and integrity from its members. It is the duty of the law society to ensure, as far as it is able, that its members measure up to the high standards required of them.
Mugadza practiced under Madanhi, Mugadza and Company Attorneys At Law, in Harare and the law firm was on a panel of law firms used by CBZ and its associated companies.
By virtue of being on that panel, Mugadza would be allocated debt collection and conveyancing work by the bank.
And between July 2016 and October 2018 and on several occasions, Mugadza with a view to inducing continued allocation of lucrative work, entered into an illicit deal with Noah Munaki, CBZ’s former manager in-charge of recoveries, where the lawyer would pay him 15 to 20 percent of his earned fees.
The payments were kickbacks for work allocated. During that period a total of 32 payments amounting to US$434 698 were made to Munaki.
The deal involved an elaborate scheme in which payments would be made from Mugadza’s trust account, business or personal account into bank account of Munaki’s wife, Coderius Matore.
Though Mugadza submitted a 10- page mitigation to moving the tribunal “not to put his neck under the guillotine”, Justice Mangota and his panel including Mr David Kanokanga and Mrs Sarah Moyo, found the lawyer’s unwholesome conduct as being serious.
In his remarks before sentencing the lawyer, Justice Mangota noted that his conduct undermined public confidence in the legal profession and his moral blameworthiness was very high.
“The respondent (Mugadza) is suspended from practicing as legal practitioner, notary public and conveyancer for a period of three years,” said Justice Mangota adding, that his law firm would be placed under curatorship for it to continue as a going concern.
The judge avoided imposing a suspended sentence as sought by Mugadza arguing that this would not meet the justice of the case.
“It would not punish the respondent,” said Justice Mangota. “It would not deter similar minded legal practitioners. Nor would it safeguard the collective interest in upholding the standard of the legal profession. Such offence would trivialise the offence.”
The illicit deal came to light in 2018 after the bank received an anonymous tip off of underhand dealing involving Munaki and several of the law firms on its panel of legal services providers.
Mugadza’s firm was one of the firms involved. Acting on the tip off, CBZ instituted investigations which revealed that between July 2016 and October 2018 Mugadza and Munaki entered into the illicit arrangement.
Online Reporter