Durban: Jacob Zuma had been stripped of his constitutional rights to privacy and silence when the Scorpions adopted its "at all costs" approach to its search-and-seize raids on his homes and offices in August.

Their "cavalier and cynical" manner when his attorney, Michael Hulley, of Durban, tried to claim privilege on some of the seized documents was inexplicable, Justice Noel Hurt was told in the high court here yesterday.

Kemp J Kemp, counsel for Zuma, was arguing for the search warrants to be declared unlawful and the seized documents to be returned.

Zuma was in court to see at first hand the style of the top lawyer he has also entrusted with his defence in his trials on rape and corruption charges.

Kemp did not disappoint: he is known in legal circles for his methodical, some say "brilliant", mind and unassuming personality.

Assisted by Michael Smithers, he attacked the warrants on several grounds.

Chief of these was that the warrants had not included a provision of the National Prosecuting Authority that allowed a person to claim privilege on certain documents and ask that they be held with the high court registrar, "preserving the rights of both sides".

Also, those carrying out the raids had not brought this section to the attention of those being raided.

"This was a carefully planned operation involving 300 people - this issue must have been on their minds, but they chose to callously and cynically disregard it," Kemp said.

He said the state was now suggesting that Hulley, as an attorney, should have known about the provision, implying that every lawyer carried every piece of legislation around in his head.

"I didn't know about it before," said Kemp. Judge Hurt acknowledged that he, too, had not.

Later on the day of the raids, when Hulley had tried to claim privilege on the documents seized from his office, the state representatives ignored him and continued reading them.

Later yesterday, the judge referred to an affidavit by Billy Downer, lead prosecutor in Schabir Shaik's trial on corruption charges. On the day of the raids, Hulley had asked Downer if he could read the documents seized from his office to establish if they were privileged and if he could see the affidavit supporting the application for the warrants.

Downer refused these requests.

Judge Hurt said: "I don't regard this as proper conduct on the part of a prosecutor."

Kemp argued that there were "ominous" indications that the raids were an attempt by the Scorpions to establish Zuma's defence in the corruption trial because the warrants authorised seizure of "any note or comment" on the Shaik case.

Smithers told the court that the warrants were "excessive and vague".

"There were more than 20 of them and they were all framed in the same terms. It was one size fits all and they were designed to catch everything possible in the net."

Smithers said that so broad were the warrants, they allowed for the seizure of all computers at Hulley's office, "which would have crippled his practice (had this) been executed".

The state, represented by Marumo Moerane, argued that the warrants had been legally obtained.

He said not all rights were of equal standing and there was "tension between privilege and the search for truth".

"There are enough safeguards in the legislation to protect people subject to search and seizure," he said.

Argument continues today.

With acknowledgements to Tania Broughton and the Cape Times.