By NATION REPORTER
IT is practically impossible for President Hakainde Hichilema and his administration to remove the death penalty without going for a referendum, Patriotic Front (PF) acting president, Given Lubinda, has said.
Mr Lubinda said the country needed to go for a referendum to ensure that the death sentence was scrapped and anything apart from that would not amount to much.
He said they had to first deal with the Bill of Rights and that was only possible with a referendum.
He said that not even parliament could table this issue if a referendum was not done and that the President would be wasting his time.
Mr Lubinda said the President needed to know that even if he took the matter to parliament it would not go through if they did not have a referendum.
He said that the UPND when in opposition vigorously objected the move for the country to go for a referendum in 2016 because this would have dealt with issues like the death penalty.
“Our colleagues vigorously objected when we wanted to deal with the Bill of Rights but they should know that this pronouncement will not go anywhere if they do not have a referendum,” Mr Lubinda said.
He said the UPND and their surrogates did not know what they were doing when they objected to the move by the PF to deal with the issue.
Mr Lubinda said that there was no person that had been executed from 1998 because all the Presidents were refusing to sign the execution order.
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