Another bogus lawyer exposed

Zim Now Writer

A Greendale woman, who is employed by Kanoti and Partners as an administration and compliance officer, was arraigned to court facing allegations of fraud and defeating the course of justice.

Linda Kovi, 34, of Greendale appeared before magistrate Stanford Mambanje.

The complainant in this matter is the State, represented by Joe Zimba, who is the Finance and Administration Manager for Council for Legal Education.

The State, through prosecutor Lancelot Mutsokoti, alleges that sometime in 2019, Kovi graduated from the University of Africa, in Lusaka, Zambia, with a Bachelor of Law degree.

For her to practise law in Zimbabwe, she had to get a certificate of conversions with the Council for Legal Education.

In 2020, she enrolled with CLE and started writing conversion examinations.

Kovi registered and sat for four modules in June 2020.

The State alleges that she only managed to pass one and failed the remaining three.

She went on to register and sat for three other modules and failed all of them.

Investigations also proved that she did not write another module.

Kovi allegedly then gave an undisclosed employee of the Council for Legal Education an undisclosed amount in order for her to facilitate the printing of a certificate, regardless of the fact that she had only passed one module.

The certificate was processed though Kovi had not passed the remaining seven modules and that enabled her to be admitted as a legal practitioner.

Through her actions, Kovi is alleged to have caused prejudice to the good reputation and administration of the Council for Legal Education.

She allegedly went on to the High Court of Zimbabwe and applied to be admitted as a legal practitioner.

She submitted the fraudulently obtained certificate to the court purporting that she was a fit and proper person to be admitted as a legal practitioner.

She was duly admitted as a legal practitioner.

Kovi was ordered to appear in court on August 7.