ConCourt relevance questioned

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 08:58:55 +0000

By CHARLES MUSONDA

THE Young Africa Leadership Initiative (YALI) has questioned the Constitutional Court’s relevance to dispensation of justice in Zambia.

In an interview in Lusaka yesterday, YALI governance advisor Isaac Mwanza said both the opposition and the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) were complaining against some of the Constitutional Court’s decisions.

“What is the relevance of having the Constitutional Court? Did we fail to deal with constitutional matters when we had the High Court or Supreme Court earlier on; or we were much better than it is now because the opposition are complaining, the ruling party is complaining. Citizens are complaining against the Constitutional Court, so where did we go wrong.

“Did we really need the Constitutional Court and if we need a Constitutional Court, what do we need it for? We believe as YALI that the Constitutional Court must be a court of appeal. It must not be a court where in the first instance evidence has to be evaluated,” Mr. Mwanza said.  He added: “It must be a court of appeal just to analyse arguments and deal with the matters of law rather than matters of evidence. By doing that we are going to ensure that these judges we place at the Constitutional Court are shielded and protected from these attacks against them because they will be dealing purely with matters of law.”

He said due to some political biasness by some Constitutional Court’s judges, they could not dispense justice in the manner they were supposed to, adding that some of them were perceived to be pro-PF while others seemed to side with the opposition UPND. “Because of that, the public is losing confidence in the judges dispensing justice without taking into consideration the political side of it. This perception is very strong and I think that is why we have laws such as the Judicial Code of Conduct, which emphasise that justice must be seen as impartial and they must not associate themselves with political bias,” Mr. Mwanza said. He agreed with President Lungu’s observation that some ‘clever’ people were trying to use the Judiciary to ascend to power. “It is up to the Judiciary to redeem itself from such things by offering impartial rulings, impartial judgments. When citizens decide try to drag these judges to the Judicial Complaints Commission, it is within their rights to do so.

“Judges are accountable to the citizens of the Republic of Zambia but we must allow these judges to do their job professionally and impartially. We must not be in a situation where these judges are being dragged to the Judicial Complaints Commission (JCC) just because some parties are satisfied and others are not. It will defeat the whole purpose of doing justice,” he said.