Zuma's house raid was unprofessional: Lawyer

Zuma's lawyers have called the raid on his home unprofessional behaviour by the NPA

ANC President, Jacob Zuma's legal team has accused the Scorpions of failing to take into account the principles of legal professional privilege when they raided Zuma's attorney's offices in 2005.

Advocate Kemp J Kemp accused the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) of appalling behaviour. He also referred to the NPA's heads of argument, in which they argued that Zuma's attorney did not raise the issue of privilege during the raids, and that they had not found any privileged documents.

The Scorpions seized two boxes filled with documents from Attorney Michael Hulley's office. The papers had earlier been handed to him, on conclusion of the Schabir Shaik trial, by Shaik's attorney.

Kemp has told the 11 judges that they, as the guardians of the Constitution, have to decide if search warrants must make provision - in the form of a clause - for legal professional privilege, when an attorney's offices are raided.

Zuma, Hulley and French arms manufacturer Thint are applying for leave to appeal against a decision by the Supreme Court of Appeals last year that declared the warrants and the search and seizure operations valid.

Over 93 000 documents were eventually taken by the Scorpions. The NPA wants to use documents seized during the raids in Zuma's corruption trial, scheduled for August.