The state should have attached an affidavit to the warrants authorising searches of the offices of ANC president Jacob Zuma and his lawyer Michael Hulley, because without it the warrants were vague and invalid, Zuma's lawyer Kemp J Kemp said on Tuesday.

This would tell those conducting the searches more about the investigation and which information to look for, and would have prevented both the seizure of documents unrelated to the case and violations of privacy and lawyer/client privilege.

Kemp said the warrants were so vague that even the people whose premises were searched would not know what was being sought.

They would also not be able to point out and raise objections to the seizure of privileged information or items that fell out of the scope of the warrant.

Kemp said that this was why the state had ended up with 93 000 pages of documents garnered by between 250 to 300 investigators bearing 22 warrants *1 in their investigation of corruption charges against Zuma.

"It must be the best documented case of corruption ever in the history of the world," he quipped, only to be corrected by Judge Kate O'Regan citing international cases.

O'Regan suggested that the laws governing searches enabled investigators to deal with more than the tip of the warrant.

Kemp said that read together, an affidavit and a warrant "would tell you exactly what you are talking about".

Kemp said that although the warrant contained a list of potential items to be seized, the National Prosecuting Authority only took a few boxes of financial records transferred to Hulley when Schabir Shaik resigned as Zuma's financial adviser.

The documents were seized in a series of early morning raids also on arms company Thint on August 18.

Earlier the court heard that there was no statute determining exactly what should be in a search warrant.

Zuma, Hulley and Thint are appealing a Supreme Court of Appeal decision on the matter and hope to get the warrants declared invalid and the documents returned.

The Constitutional Court was originally only going to hear an application to seek leave to appeal. However it emerged on Tuesday morning that the court would hear the search warrant matter at the same time as hearing the application for leave to appeal.

With acknowledgements to Sapa.