Lawyers Against the Law? Judges and the Legal Profession in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe

Abstract

This negative image of lawyers as a dishonest profession which feeds on the innocent's miseries is almost as old as the legal profession and has sometimes resulted in shortsighted, emotional and retrogressive measures against the legal profession such as its abolition in France soon after the 1789 Revolution and in Russia in the aftermath of the 1917 Socialist Revolution. In contrast to the above perceptions, lawyers often see themselves and their profession as custodians of every society's civilisation. For example, Justice Maugham has argued that "lawyers are the custodians of civilisations than which there can be no higher aim and nobler duty".