Zambia’s president is moving from controversy to controversy, reports Anthony Kunda in Lusaka
ZAMBIAN President Frederick Chiluba has suspended a distinguished high court Judge, Kabazo Chanda, who has a history of criticising the president and the country’s poor human rights record. Chiluba has refused to disclose reasons for the suspension.
According to Article 98 Section 5 of the Constitution, the president is empowered to suspend a high court or supreme court judge whose performance or conduct he deems unacceptable.
Presidential spokesman Richard Sakala said Judge Chanda will have his conduct as a judge probed by a three-person tribunal. The tribunal will be composed of supreme court Judge Robert Kapembwa, who is also chairman of Zambia’s Anti-Corruption Commission, and another supreme court judge, Brian Gardner. The third member of the tribunal is Judge Leonard Onyolo of Malawi’s supreme court.
The tribunal, which will start investigations in two weeks’ time, is expected to recommend whether Judge Chanda should be relieved of his duties permanently.
Reliable sources in the judiciary say the suspension may have something to do with the petitions pending in the supreme court which have been filed by opposition groups challenging Zambia’s recent elections and Chiluba’s legitimacy as president. The petitions were filed last week by former president Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party and the Liberal Progressive Front (LPF), but the court has postponed hearing them until later this month.
Chiluba, the groups say, has a Zairean father, which would preclude him from being president according to a constitutional amendment which he personally oversaw.
The Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association of Zambia has denounced Judge Chanda’s suspension, calling it intimidation by Chiluba. Timothy Katanekwa, the association’s chairman, said the suspension has sent shivers down the spines of several judges in the high and supreme courts.
Katanekwa, who is a high court commissioner, said: “Judges are not above the law, but the use of a tribunal, if not properly done, might be a tool which can undermine the independence of the judiciary.”
He added that the practice of meting out discipline to judges, through a tribunal, is a rare practice in Commonwealth countries.
Some opposition parties have similarly criticised Judge Chanda’s suspension, saying it undermined the independence of the judiciary.
Dean Mung’omba, president of the opposition Zambia Democratic Contress (ZDC), said: “This cannot be in the interest of justice. The aim is to control the judiciary so that they [Chiluba’s party, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy] can be stealing cases in the same way they stole the vote.”
LPF chairman Dr Rodger Chongwe similarly said the suspension was a blow to the independence of the judiciary. He said the suspension was a signal that Chiluba and his ruling party would not stand judges who frustrate their interests.
“The action was political. It has nothing to do with his performance. It’s a warning to other judges. If they don’t toe the line of Chiluba’s politics, they will suffer the same fate.”
Judge Chanda drew considerable attention to himself in the middle of last year when he overruled the speaker of the Zambian Parliament, Dr Robinson Nabulyato, who had sentenced Fred M’membe, the editor of The Post newspaper, and his assistant, Bright Mwape, to indefinite prison terms for contempt of Parliament.
Judge Chanda argued that the speaker and Parliament had no right to imprison people. The Post has persistently exposed corruption in Chiluba’s government.
Barely three weeks ago, Judge chanda sparked a separate controversy by releasing 53 suspects who were awaiting trial, because of failure by prosecutors to bring them to court speedily, arguing that justice delayed was justice denied. Some of the released suspects had been awaiting trial since as far back as 1992.
Judge Chanda, so far, has not said anything about the suspension, except that he would speak when the right time came.