The Scorpions and former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s attorney, whose office they raided last month, presented arguments in court yesterday over whether attorney-client privilege was breached in the raid.

Attorney Julekha Mahomed asked the Johannesburg High Court to set aside the search warrants and that all objects seized from her home and office on August 18 be returned to her.

Counsel for Mahomed, Neil Tuchten, said the attorney-client privilege had been violated because investigators who executed the raid last month flipped through confidential files and read others. Such a breach of privilege could have serious implications if attorneys’ offices were regularly raided, he said.

There are also questions about how directorate of special operations lawyers described Mahomed in their application for the raid.

Judge Ismail Hussain yesterday questioned why Mahomed was described as “Zuma’s personal legal assistant” during a warrant application to Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe.

“This is a terrible way to describe an attorney. How was the judge president to know that Mahomed was an admitted attorney?” Hussain asked.

Scorpions’ advocate, Marumo Moerane, said Mahomed was incorrectly described but, it was never the intention to conceal to Ngoepe that she was an attorney.

“The judge president was under no illusion about the status of Mahomed,” he said.

Moerane said there was a dispute over whether all the documents seized were privileged. He said not every document in Mahomed’s office was deemed to be privileged. The onus was on her to declare to investigators at the time that a document was privileged.

Judgment is expected to be passed tomorrow.

With acknowledgments to Ernest Mabuza and the Business Day.