Anthony Kunda
ZAMBIAN President Frederick Chiluba has more than doubled the salaries of his Supreme Court judges, prompting accusations that he is attempting to influence the outcome of the legal challenge to his re-election.
The increases – the second in nine months – push the salary for Zambia’s chief justice from R416 000 to just under R1-million a year, while his deputy’s salary doubles, to R720 000. Other Supreme Court judges see their salaries more than double, to R640 000. Car allowances and loan facilities have also ballooned.
Chiluba is facing a supreme court challenge to his re-election last November, with several opposition parties claiming his father was not Zambian. Foreigners are not eligible to be president. Witnesses presented to the court by the opposition parties have claimed Chiluba’s father was from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, or from Mozambique.
The Liberal Progressive Front, one of the parties, claims Chiluba’s salary hikes are an attempt to influence the outcome of the challenge. “The increases have been made to coincide with the hearing of the presidential petition,” says representative Rodger Chongwe.
“The package has been prepared by the respondent. It’s vulgar and is being made in bad faith. Increases of more than 100% are unrealistic, especially when people are starving and are dying of hunger and diseases.”
United National Independence Party chair Malimba Masheke says the increases have compromised the judiciary’s impartiality.
Other opposition parties say the increases, granted through an executive statutory instrument, are unconstitutional: Zambia’s Constitution stipulates that judges must have their salaries approved by Parliament.
“A statutory instrument is not an Act of Parliament,” says Patrick Mavunga, one of the lawyers in the parties’ court fight. “This is therefore illegal.”
But the Judicial Service Commission plays down the increases. Its secretary, Timothy Katanekwa, says the commission secured the new conditions of service for judges after negotiations with the Cabinet Office.
He says Chiluba has not arbitrarily determined the hikes, but was empowered under the Judges’ Conditions of Service Act of 1996 to prescribe new conditions for the judges. The Act does not require salaries of constitutional office holders to be sanctioned by Parliament.
Katanekwa adds that the size of the salaries does not justify the uproar from opposition parties: “The salary of the chief justice is nothing considering the amount of work involved.”