M’membe abusing court process

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 07:34:29 +0000

By CHINTU MALAMBO

Fred M’membe has been accused of abusing Zambia’s court process by initiating a multiplicity of actions before different courts over the closure of his newspaper, the Post, for insolvency.

Now the five former Post Newspaper (in liquidation) employees, who sued the paper, have requested the Lusaka High Court to halt M’membe’s  proceedings  which are intended to set aside the consent judgement that declared the company bankrupt.

They have argued that the matter before the High Court was similar to the one before the Constitutional Court, which was irregular.

M’membe commenced proceeding in the High Court and also in the Constitutional Court, seeking a stay and orders to set aside High Court judge Sunday Nkonde’s consent judgment that declared the Post Newspaper insolvent.

The five namely, Abel Mboozi, Roy Habaalu, Andrew Chiwenda, Mweembalubi Mweene and Bonaventure Bwalya, filed a notice of motion to raise a preliminary issue on point of law through their lawyer, Kennedy Mambwe.

They argued that the matters before the High Court and Constitutional Court were similar and an abuse of court process as they related to the ‘stay and setting aside of consent judgment dated January 10, 2018.

They argued further that it was a proper case to stay the proceedings pending determination by a superior court.

In this matter, M’membe sued the five former employees and the Zambia Revenue Authority-ZRA- who commenced an action requesting the High Court to wind up the company.

M’membe alleged that he was not given an opportunity to sign the consent order as a party to the proceedings and that Judge Nkonde went ahead to sign the consent judgement without having statutory inter parte return hearing for the appointment of a provisional liquidator.

He also argued that the order which appointed the provisional liquidator Lewis Mosho, did not give him the right in any way to evade his and the Post Newspaper’s right to defend the winding up proceedings on their own behalf.

Mr M’membe asked the court to set aside the consent judgment for being illegal and obtained by fraud.