Tue, 10 Jan 2017 14:27:42 +0000
By CHIKUMBI KATEBE
THE creation of a criminal division in the High Court will help reduce the huge backlog of cases yet to be heard, as well as expedite the disposal of cases with minimum delays, says Law Association of Zambia vice-president Eddie Mweetwa.
This was after Minister of Justice Given Lubinda announced yesterday that among various Judicial Reforms being undertaken by the Government was the establishment of a criminal division of the High Court to handle criminal cases.
Mr Mweetwa said it was commendable that the judiciary was enhancing new effective methods of dispensing justice through establishment of such separate divisions specifically to deal with the backlog of criminal cases.
“It is obviously welcome news to us as LAZ because what that will do is to make a provision of a division of the court to specifically dedicated to dealing with criminal cases.
“And that hopefully will help to ease the backlog and congestion of criminal cases in the judicial system,” Mr Mweetwa said.
He explained that criminal matters take precedence over civil cases that it would be difficult for the court to achieve that without a division that specifically dealt with such cases.
He said LAZ was hopeful that the establishment of the new criminal division would be set up quickly, and that as lawyers, they were ready to take up the challenge in support of an effective justice system.
Mr Lubinda said the amendment to the Constitution which established the Constitutional Court, the Industrial Relations Court and Family and Children’s courts, all divisions of the High Court, and that there would soon be established a criminal division of the High Court to specifically deal with criminal cases only.
He explained that the criminal division will hear and determine criminal matters only to enhance specialisation among judges thereby quickening the disposal of criminal cases.
