Category: News Feeds

The only thing you can do is cut costs and the number one cost is people. I imagine that some firms are going to find themselves in uncomfortable situations now and I just think that the reality is the longer this goes on the more cuts we’re going to see.

— Bruce MacEwen, owner and principal at law firm consultancy Adam Smith, Esq., commenting on the likelihood that more people, lawyers and staff alike, will lose their jobs at Biglaw firms the longer the coronavirus crisis continues. According to an analysis performed by Bloomberg Law, 48 of the top 100 firms in the country instituted austerity measures due to the pandemic, be they equity partner payment reductions or delays, attorney and staff salary cuts, furloughs, or layoffs.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Oh this is fantastic. It’s really the best kind of benchslap because you don’t need to know any details about the case to understand the devastating slap this federal judge dropped on the Biglaw firm of Gibson Dunn.

The defendant, One Technologies, is represented by Gibson Dunn, led by partner Brian Robison, and co-counsel, Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann. In a brief, a reply in support of a motion for reconsideration, defense counsel referred to district court judge Sam A. Lindsay’s interpretation as “nonsensical,” and well, he does not take kindly to that. He analogizes — with citations — using “nonsensical” to calling him stupid, and that is a pretty glaring no-no in the judge’s book.

Take a look at the full benchslap:

Before the court addresses the parties’ arguments, it addresses the statement of counsel for Defendants that the court’s prior interpretation was “nonsensical,” among other things. Defs.’ Reply 1-2. The court takes no umbrage with an attorney disagreeing with its rulings, as at least one party will usually always be adversely affected by what the court does. Disagreement is not uncommon in a highly competitive legal environment. If an attorney believes that the court has made an incorrect ruling concerning a client, the attorney may take advantage of the appellate process.

Defendants’ attorneys’ tone and use of the word “nonsensical” are “beyond the pale.” The court considers the term “nonsensical” to be synonymous with “stupid” and the functional equivalent of using the term “B.S.” This understanding is supported by Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. That Defendants’ counsel would display such effrontery to the court is astounding. In any event, if similar conduct recurs, the court will address such conduct with appropriate sanctions, as it will not tolerate such impertinent conduct. The court places the fault squarely at the feet of Defendants’ counsel, as they are responsible for filing documents, as well as the content therein, with the court. The court now addresses the substantive arguments made by the parties.

So everyone with cases in the Northern District of Texas, update your practice manuals and don’t ever, ever call Judge Lindsay, or any of his arguments, nonsensical again.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

There is no such thing as a “proactive arrest.” There is no such thing as a “noncustodial arrest” where an individual is transported to another location and detained. There is no such thing as probable cause because a person was standing in a group of several hundred people, five or six of whom are suspected of committing a crime.

That is not how any of this works!

And yet here’s Chad Wolf, our acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, explaining to Fox News that his agents simply have to snatch random black-clad kids off the streets of Portland because those mean Democratic mayors won’t welcome his storm troopers into their cities with open arms.

The Department, because we don’t have that local law enforcement support, we are having to go out and proactively arrest individuals. And we need to do that because we need to hold them accountable. This idea that they can attack federal property and law enforcement officers and go to the other side of the street and say, “you can’t touch me,” is ridiculous.

Wolf, who has no law enforcement or legal background and made his name championing DHS’s family separation policy, has consistently described large crowds of overwhelmingly peaceful protestors as “violent anarchists.” Which is handy wordsmithing, since it recasts the demand that police stop killing black people as a call to overthrow the government, while simultaneously imputing criminality to thousands of people at once to justify “proactive arrests.” Whatever those are.

There’s no evidence that these yellow-shirted moms were participating in any illegal activity at all, but that didn’t stop Wolf’s stormtroopers beating and gassing them like everyone else last night.

Wolf continued to misunderstand basic tenets of American criminal law at a DHS press conference yesterday. When asked by a reporter about people getting snatched off the streets and thrown into vans for questioning — “What exactly is the standard of probable cause you are getting, and how is that not a violation of civil liberties?” — Wolf again garbled the legal underpinnings of his argument with vague assertions of group criminality.

This is a very difficult environment to work in. You have 500, 600 violent individuals, violent criminals across the streets that try to inflict harm on your property and law enforcement officers. We do our best to identify who they are using probable cause. What we don’t do is we don’t go into the crowd. We don’t try to go into a violent crowd of 400 people to arrest people.

Probable cause is a means of identification? Umm, okay.

Then Wolf turned the microphone over to his deputy Kris Cline, head of the Federal Protection Service, to take another stab at it. Cline started off strong, noting that agents have the right to investigate crimes on or against federal property. But he ran into some trouble when defending the widely disseminated video of his agents jumping out of a van and grabbing up a black-clad kid off the street.

The individual they were questioning was in a crowd and an area where an individual was aiming a laser at the eyes of officers.

So just on the face of it, that does not sound like “facts and circumstances within the police officer’s knowledge would lead a reasonable person to believe that the suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.” As Harvard Law professor Andrew Crespo pointed out in an excellent Twitter thread last night, guilt by association is really not a thing in American law.

Cline’s description doesn’t even sound like “reasonable suspicion” that the individual was involved in criminal activity such as would justify a brief, non-consensual detention. In fact, it sounds like just the type of heavy-handed, extra-legal policing that brought thousands of people out onto the streets of Portland for the past 54 nights. But go on, sir!

In this instance, the CPB officers approached him. And you saw the approach, it was peaceful, there is no tackle, no get on the ground, they wanted to talk to him.

In fact, we did see “the approach,” and that is definitely not how we would describe it. We would describe it as unmarked agents who wordlessly grabbed this guy off the street without identifying themselves, much less announcing their intention to question him. As for Cline’s assertion that “they asked the individual to please get in the van,” well, he seems to be, ummm, mistaken about that.

“They did take him to an area that was safe for both the officers and the individual to do the questioning,” Cline continued. “So, it’s not a custodial arrest.”

As we pointed out last week and Professor Crespo noted last night, this is the very definition of a custodial arrest, so cleanly within the margins that it could be lifted from a criminal law exam. He was detained, transported to another location without his consent, he was not free to leave, and he was questioned about criminal activity. And if the guys in charge of those shock troops unleashed on America’s streets don’t understand the basics of WHAT IS “ARREST,” then they’re in no position to guarantee that the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights of US citizens are being protected.

Nonetheless, Wolf bridles at criticism that his troops trample civil liberties and needlessly inflame an already tense situation.

“These police officers are not storm troopers. They are not the Gestapo, as some have described them,” he huffed indignantly. “That script is offensive, hyperbolic, and dishonest.”

You can tell DHS and the FPS aren’t Gestapo stormtroopers by how often they feel the need to deny it.

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Elizabeth Dye (@5DollarFeminist) lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Despite the ongoing disruption and uncertainty of our current circumstances, it is safe to assume that mandatory continuing legal education will continue to be an obligation for all practicing lawyers.

We wanted to check in with the ATL audience and get a sense of how you feel about mandatory continuing legal education during these unprecedented times.

Which of the following best describes your circumstances?  Take a quick poll here.

Like a lot of the South, Louisiana is in the midst of a COVID infection spike. While the governor has responded swiftly and called to defeat the disease with three days of prayer and fasting, the state supreme court opted for a more grounded response when it came to the looming bar exam.

In a narrow vote, the Louisiana Supreme Court just granted a qualified diploma privilege option for many prospective attorneys. All those not covered by the conditions of the order will have the option of taking a remote bar exam.

If an applicant had registered for the July or October exam, graduated either in the Spring or last December from an ABA-accredited school, and not previously sat for the exam, they are eligible to skip the written bar examination. Other requirements such as the MPRE are still required.

Anyone admitted under this provision will have until the end of 2021 to complete the following added requirements:

a. Complete 25 hours of CLE. 12.5 of the credits shall be obtained in accordance with the requirements set forth in Supreme Court Rule XXX(3)(b), and the remaining 12.5 hours may be in any other approved subject matter.
b. Complete all requirements of the Louisiana State Bar Association’s “Transition Into Practice” program.

The Transition Into Practice program is a mentoring program that seeks to provide practical lawyering skills to new attorneys.

This decision generated some amazing dissents that underscore exactly why states like Louisiana are suffering massive outbreaks. A justice declared that canceling the in-person July exam was an “overreaction to the virus.” Another dissenter branded it “gifting a license,” while yet another declared:

This Order labels this free pass as an “emergency admission.” And I ask, “Just what is the emergency?”

Hmm. Where could that emergency be? On June 22, Louisiana’s three-day rolling average of infections was 575. Yesterday, it was 2,667. So, yeah, there’s the emergency.

In fairness, Justice Genovese pivots from this to claiming that there’s no reason to let any of these applicants practice law because there are already enough lawyers in the state by his estimation. He also zeroes in on the canard that because 25 percent of examinees fail the bar exam this order will mean a quarter of these new attorneys will lack competence, which isn’t how bar exam scoring works and it takes very, very little effort to do the research to figure that out.

“There’s no emergency! It’s all an overreaction!” This is what a death cult looks like.

Thankfully, cooler heads narrowly prevailed in Louisiana.

(Full order on next page.)

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

The coronavirus and the resulting government shutdown orders have profoundly altered our way of life. Most had to work from home while some couldn’t work at all. In-person meetings with clients and colleagues became impractical or even illegal in order to control the spread of COVID-19.

The existing tax law applied to the new normal will create some tax surprises. Here are a few situations.

Fewer deductible auto expenses. Due to the shutdown orders, many people did not drive as much as they used to. The good news is that people are paying less in gas and maintenance bills. Many insurance companies offered to (or were required to by law) reduce insurance premiums during the shutdown period.

But this also means that self-employed people will have less in automobile deductions. Generally, auto expense deductions are claimed using one of two methods. The standard mileage method generally allows a deduction for every mile driven for business purposes. The actual expense method generally allows a deduction for the expenses actually paid, such as gas, maintenance, depreciation, registration, and lease payments. But the deduction is prorated, based on the percentage the car is used for business purposes. For example, if you spent $1,000 on auto expenses for a car that is used 80% for business, you are allowed to take an $800 deduction.

I doubt that the IRS will make special accommodations for the auto expense deduction rules due to COVID-19. Just keep in mind that if you are driving less and spending less on auto expenses, expect to get less in tax deductions as a result.

Meal expenses. Currently, the rule on meal expenses connected with a business activity is that 50% of the cost is deductible if the price is not extravagant or lavish, the taxpayer or their employee is physically present, and the meal is provided to a current or potential business contact.

The problem is that the shutdown orders prohibits dining-in at restaurants. Also, when the shutdown orders are lifted, most restaurants are limiting the number of guests in order to meet social distancing guidelines. So most business lunches with business contacts are done virtually at home.

Despite the restrictions, it is possible to comply with the rule. For example, a business owner can invite a colleague to his home and discuss business. Food can be ordered and delivered to his home. However, I do not see people doing this on a regular basis.

But the shutdown order can create ambiguities. For example, suppose one person can pay for the food and have it delivered to their contact. But if they talk virtually using video, are they physically present?

What I realistically see happening is that people will pay for their own meals when participating in a virtual meeting with business associates. Since the meal is not provided to a business contact, is the meal expense still deductible? What if I made the food at home? Are the cost of groceries tax deductible?

I am hoping the IRS will issue some guidance — either through a notice or temporary regulations — that addresses business-related meal costs in these situations. Virtual meetings — either by phone or video chat — should temporarily be considered meeting the “physically present” requirement.

Also, food purchased from a restaurant for personal consumption should be deductible so long as it was purchased before a scheduled virtual business meeting. That can incentivize businesses to order more often from struggling restaurants. And the tax deduction can help since we are paying not only for the food but also tax, tip, delivery fee, the health insurance surcharge, the living wage surcharge, the climate change surcharge, and now the COVID-19 surcharge.

Unemployment income is taxable. Currently, unemployment benefits are taxable income. Why? I have no idea.

With the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance providing $600 per week on top of the state’s existing unemployment benefits, some people can receive substantial money, which can mean substantial surprise taxes. I say surprise taxes because most people mistakenly (but understandably) think that unemployment benefits are tax free.

This tax tends to be most painful to those who are already in a mid- to high-tax bracket and received benefits in the high four-figure range.

Expenses paid with PPP money are not tax deductible. Many businesses received money through the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The money is a loan, although it can be forgiven if a certain portion is used for payroll and the rest for certain expenses such as rent and utilities. Thankfully, the forgiven amount is not considered taxable income.

However, the IRS has ruled that if expenses are paid with PPP money, and the loan is forgiven, those expenses are not tax deductible. The rationale is that since the forgiven money is not taxable income, it is only fair that you cannot take a deduction using that money.

The problem is that a lot of people — particularly gig economy independent contractors — will either not know about this rule or forget about it. Some bookkeepers and accountants also might not know about the rule or may not apply it correctly for a number of reasons. Given the low audit rates at the IRS, this might make the rule difficult to enforce.

I anticipate that the SBA will issue a tax form to the IRS informing them of the PPP loan amount the taxpayer received and whether it was forgiven. The IRS will then require the taxpayer to complete a special form detailing what the PPP funds were used for and then add the amount back to taxable income.

So if you received PPP money and managed to get it forgiven, just remember to expect a higher tax bill.

Take advantage of the home-office deduction. As most of us are forced to work from home, our home utility bills are likely to rise as a result. If you are self-employed, then a portion of these expenses are tax deductible if your home is considered a home office.

To qualify for a home-office deduction, you must regularly use part of your home exclusively for conducting business.

Also, the home must be the principal place of business. This means that you use your home regularly for administrative or management activities and you have no other fixed location to do so. Alternatively, your home is the principal place of business if you physically meet clients and customers there.

Before COVID-19, some self-employed people did not qualify for the home-office deduction because they had a separate office location, and that is where they did most of their administrative work and physically met with clients or customers.

But now, most government shutdown orders and landlords prohibit or severely limits when business owners can enter their offices. There are also similar prohibitions and limitations on when business owners can meet with their clients or customers. So an argument can be made that your home is the principal place of business because there is no other fixed location to perform administrative or management duties. And it is difficult or impossible to meet clients in your office due to the shutdown orders.

Some people did not take a home-office deduction even though they qualified for it because they thought it would turn them into an audit target or the compliance rules were just too difficult. But now that working from home is the new normal, more people will claim this expense.

For single people, I would recommend using the largest room in the house as an office to maximize the deduction. Since these are usually the living and dining rooms, this strategy is not feasible for family households.

While I think IRS auditors will be understanding if the home-office deduction becomes an issue, it would be very helpful if they issued guidance on claiming the home-office deduction in light of COVID-19 and the shutdown orders.

Due to the lifestyle changes we were forced to make due to COVID-19, we are spending less money on tax-deductible expenses. Assuming income remains steady, some businesses might expect a higher tax bill. It is best to know about it now and prepare for it.

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Steven Chung is a tax attorney in Los Angeles, California. He helps people with basic tax planning and resolve tax disputes. He is also sympathetic to people with large student loans. He can be reached via email at sachimalbe@excite.com. Or you can connect with him on Twitter (@stevenchung) and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Ken Griffin is known to be rather particular about the security and use of his trade secrets. And, as it turns out, those of his clients as well.

Over a two-year period until September 2014, the market-maker removed hundreds of thousands of large OTC orders from its automated trading processes, according to Finra. That rendered the orders “inactive” and so they had to be handled manually by human traders.

Citadel Securities then “traded for its own account on the same side of the market at prices that would have satisfied the orders,” without immediately filling the inactive orders at the same or better prices as required by Finra rules, the regulator said….

Nearly half of the 467 limit orders reviewed by the regulator in the six years until September 2018 were found to violate Finra’s requirements to display orders. The bulk of the violations were for failing to execute trades against existing quotations in a timely manner, Finra said.

As readers of ATL know by now, or should know if they’re reading ATL, the California Supreme Court has decreed some changes to the California Bar Exam for 2020. Originally set for the end of this month, the Court first deferred the exam to September and now to October. Instead of examinees hacking and coughing around each other, especially now considering the pandemic, the two-day exam will be online.

That’s not the only order the court made. The court also ordered the state bar to expedite creation of a provisional licensure program under supervision to 2020 law school graduates — effective until they can take and pass a California bar exam and expiring no later than June 1, 2022.

But wait, there’s more. The court permanently lowered the “cut score” from 1440 to 1390. There’s so much to discuss that my head is about to explode.

Let’s take the change in the exam date first. It was a foregone conclusion that the bar exam date would be changed; the issue was when? Would it be September as originally thought? Now it’s October, and that date seems fixed. It’ll be online, a first for California and other states who have thoughtfully moved the bar exam date and methodology to accommodate the pandemic.

Moving on to the provisional licensure program under supervision, many questions surround the creation and implementation of such a program. Hopefully, the state bar saw this coming, and creation and implementation of such a program will not gobble up most of the available time, which ends in less than two years.

How will the bar recruit volunteers? Thousands are registered for the bar exam. How many lawyers will agree to supervise? Will there need to be an incentive for lawyers to be willing to undertake that supervision? Will malpractice carriers be willing to add provisional licensees as additional insureds? Or will carriers tell lawyers, “you are on your own, counsel.” I can’t imagine, given our lack of appetite for risk, that many lawyers will undertake supervision without some assurance that by going out on a limb, it will not be sawed off either by the malpractice carrier or zealous bar disciplinary counsel.

And last but not certainly least, the reduction of the infamous “cut score,” from 1440 to 1390, a difference of 50 points. Law school professors, deans, and students should be pleased. But will cutting the cut score really make a difference in the passing rate?

Examinees have always done well on the MBE. It’s the essay portion that snares them. Whether it will continue to so so is anyone’s guess. One hopes that the reduction in the passing score requirement will lead to the admission of more, but I am not so sure.

Over the years, I have critiqued essays for students at various law schools, and the results have been almost uniformly dreadful. As more and more of legal practice is submitted “on the papers,” with oral argument rarely the difference between winning and losing, the ability to write cogently and fluently takes on even greater importance.

Some law students today simply don’t know how to write coherent sentences. Their sentences are run-on, meandering, and don’t get to the point, even if the writer finds it.

Let me be clear. I do not fault law students for this situation. I fault the law schools and the instructors, the latter who are more interested in publishing, in their own scholarship, than in helping students succeed. It’s akin to “we take your money, and you take your chances,” which is not the way it should be. Critiquing exams can be deadly dull and a huge time suck, but if the goal is to get students to pass the essay portion, then law schools and faculty need to step up their game and help students get what they need. If the written bar exam goes away some day, so be it. However, until that day, we’re stuck with what is.

It’s one thing to review past exams and issue spot until you can’t stand to look at one more. It’s another thing to sit at your laptop, see issues and then write, write, write. That is what should make the difference between pass and fail. I have no idea how the bar grades essays, but I would imagine that if most of what they read is dreck, then it won’t matter what the cut score is.

Here’s an example of how discrimination rules the bar exam world, as if it didn’t already rule the practice world, but that’s a topic for another time. No joke. Outrageous, isn’t it?

At least for those states that are providing an online bar exam this summer/fall, women shouldn’t have to deal with the humiliation. What about those who must sit for a Covid-ridden in-person exam? Will there be body searches to make sure there’s nothing that should not be there? Could the Rule Against Perpetuities be written on a tampon? You tell me. Please tell me how taking feminine hygiene products into the testing room encourages cheating.

This is just one more example of how the bias against women lawyers will never change in my lifetime, which is nearer to the end than to the beginning. More than 40 years ago, I had hope. Now, not so much.

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Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

1000hrs: Our lawyers are ready. We have Beatrice Mtetwa, Adv Nkomo, Jeremiah Bhamu, Gift Mtisi and Doug Coltart are ready

1002hours : The accused have taken to the holding cells waiting for trial. No time has been given yet as to when the trial will commence

1004hrs; MDC A VP Tendai Biti is in attendance for solidarity and legal advice

1013 hrs: The police have been very cooperative. Some of our comrades have been denied entry at the gate. There is a sizeable number of people in solidarity outside

LIVE UPDATES
There is a lot of confusion at the courts as our President and Convener of 31 July Movement Jacob Ngarivhume and co-accused Hopewell Chin’ono are shunted from table to another. It seems the state is not ready for trial

1057hrs
The court is now seated ready to start. Very few allowed in the court room due to covid 19 safety regulations

1111hrs:

Reza response..
– No double profiling done
– reads out the charges.. Inciting public violence as the main charge.
– gives evidence of the charges by reading tweets purportedly from JN’s twitter handle
– advises the court to keep the accused on remand
Reza and Murombedzi prosecuting for the state. Adv NKOMO in defence

1100hrs
Adv outlines the President’s complaints against the police.
– after arrest he was dumped at law and order for 6 hrs without a charge being levelled against him
– 48 hrs required by the law have lapsed before he appears before you
– he was not allowed access to his lawyers immediately after arrest
– was profiled twice. The police said were not aware of the first profile done by an unknown female officer raising serious security issues

1117 hrs
Reza’s response..
-rejects the placing of client to bail.
– calls Inv Officer Detective Inspector Naison Chirape to the witness stand.
– Chirape says JN must not be given bail as he can abscond. He said many Bishops are in support of JN so the demo with succeed and turn out to be violent
– Chirape reads out JN’s tweets saying the following on these tweets is too much
– Chirape said JN tweets are national and the whole country will follow him in demonstration and coz havoc. He says JN has called for war

Post published in: Featured

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC) notes the exposé by lawyer Dr Alex Magaisa demonstrating how the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) loan facility designed to support commercial agriculture between 2007 and 2008 was politicised, polluted and plundered.

The exposé shows that the Farm Mechanisation looting is one of the greatest scandals in Zimbabwe post the new Millennium with at least US200 million dollars taxpayers money being looted by government Ministers, ruling party officials, clergymen and many other individuals who are connected to the ruling party.

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition calls on the government of Zimbabwe to repeal the RBZ Debt assumption Bill and we, therefore, demand that everyone who benefitted from the loan facility MUST pay back the loans with interests.

We call upon the law enforcement agencies to do all they can to ensure that all the money that can be recovered must be paid back in full, including attaching properties of the individuals who benefitted from defrauding of the Farm Mechanisation loan facility. Now that the list is available, the Coalition expects the police to swiftly act on those who should be held accountable. The admittance by Gono in 2007 that the Farm Mechanisation programme was a loan facility which farmers were supposed to pay back is evidence enough to lay criminal charges against the beneficiaries. And to avoid conflict of interest, all the Judges and officers of the court who benefitted from this state loan facility must recuse themselves.

The shocking revelations only serve to confirm our long-held claims that corruption by the government, ZANU PF heavyweights and their connected elites are one of the largest contributors to the crisis in Zimbabwe.

The high-level corruption in Zimbabwe is going unchecked at a time when the government has failed to pay civil servants and when most of the country’s citizens are grovelling in grinding poverty. What is more embarrassing is that at the time of issuing out these loans, Zimbabwe’s economy was on its knees with rising cost of living, ever-increasing inflation, industrial output at its lowest and a weak local currency.

The Coalition maintains that the government should stem out the growing tide of corruption which has left the country on its knees. Endemic mismanagement has resulted in failure to prioritize pressing needs such as paying salaries of our hardworking civil servants.

Lack of will by the government to act on recommendations from the Auditor General’s office regarding corruption in government departments, including the President’s Office is also a pointer that corruption is going on unabated in Zimbabwe.

The so-called new administration led by President Mnangagwa has failed to deliver its promises to uproot corruption in the country as evidenced by an increase in the number of corruption cases including members of the First Family and their immediate connections.

Section 196 of the Constitution provides that public officers in leadership positions must abide by the following principles – honesty in the execution of public duties; accountability to the public for decisions and actions. Section 308 adds that it is the duty of every person who has custody or control of public property to safeguard the property and ensure that it is not lost, destroyed, damaged, misapplied or misused.

The Coalition also highlights the reality that the people of Zimbabwe now know that under Mr. Mnangagwa and the ZANU PF government has been reduced into systemic corruption and web of lies reflected in the many lies and distortions performed by public officials, notably former RBZ Governor Gono who lied to Zimbabwe about the Farm Mechanisation programme.

We, therefore, demand that the Government of Zimbabwe takes corrective measures to bring sanity and soberness to our nation by urgently instituting a Commission of Enquiry tasked with further investigating the RBZ loan saga.

Post published in: Featured