EFF leader Julius Malema told eNCA’s Vuyo Mvoko on Thursday that their humiliating legal losses to Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum this week were as a result of “incompetent” lawyers.

“The mistake we made as the EFF is to hire incompetent people who lack professionalism, who are not in a position to follow up matters before court in detail,” Malema said, adding that the party had now restructured their legal team.

“People call themselves lawyers, people call themselves black lawyers and they want to be empowered in the name of black lawyers even when they are are offering me joke (sic),” he continued.

Malema explained that he was directing his anger at “lawyers of the EFF who are on a retainer, monthly, getting paid, but [who] fail to do simple things [in terms of] following up the case, [and don’t know] which case is coming when and what should we do”.

“For instance, let’s take Ms Mbeki’s case,” he continued. “A lawyer says to us we are filing a motion to oppose and just filing a motion to oppose is enough. The matter will now be sent to the opposed role. But the new lawyers say it’s not enough. You ought to file a notice to oppose and then still file and affidavit,” he said.

READ MORE: EFF given a week to prove ‘apartheid-era Stratcom spies’ allegation

Malema was referring to the EFF’s legal battle against journalist Thandeka Gqubule-Mbeki, who alongside Anton Harber wants the party to retract a statement asking the pair to prove they were not Stratcom spies under apartheid. The journalists are also seeking an apology and damages of R1 million each.

SAFM reported this week that the red berets were given a week to prove the claim that Gqubule and Harber were indeed apartheid-era spies, as the statement implied, but the EFF say they were only quoting the late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Turning back to the matters the party lost against AfriForum, Malema detailed the mistakes made by the EFF’s legal team before saying: “They [AfriForum] have not won [on] the merit. They’ve won on technicalities because of the EFF not being present. Now we’ve corrected that – bring it on, Baba.”

“We are not scared of these Boers. They were winning in our absence. We are now in it and let’s go toe to toe before the judge on merits of the case,” he added.

[Watch]: CIC @Julius_S_Malema addressing the issue of Afriforum "winning" cases against the EFF. He clarifies that Afriforum won cases without merit but technicalities. Now that we have correct issues with our legal team, they can bring it on! pic.twitter.com/sXFQ7l1Gjm — Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) November 15, 2018

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