paternity test
Anthony Kunda in Lusaka
THE Zambian Supreme Court has rejected an application to have President Frederick Chiluba subjected to a DNA test to prove conclusively whether a Congolese national, Luka Chabala Kafupi, is his biological father – thus making him ineligible to be state president.
The application, by petitioners representing opposition parties, was turned down on a four-to-one majority decision as “totally misconceived at law, and lacking merit”.
Deputy Chief Justice Bonaventure Bweupe said it was unlawful to “subject an adult to a blood test without his consent”.
Other judges said that Kafupi could not be subjected to a DNA test with Chiluba “because he is not party to the matter at hand which is the election petition. He has no interest in the election petition.”
In a minority view, however, Judge Ernest Sakala, said that the “consent” of a person could be overridden in the interests of justice. In addition, what was at stake was not mere paternity, but “paternity with respect to the Constitution”, whereby anyone seeking election as president “must be a Zambian by birth or descent, or a third- generation Zambian”.
Members of Chiluba’s Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) burst into celebratory drumming, singing and dancing on the lawn outside the courtroom. Police and paramiltiary forces kept the cadres away from members of opposition parties.
Chiluba is at present out of the country on a three-nation official visit. He was represented in court by Deputy Minister of Information Ernest Mwansa, who is also a lawyer.
Several opposition leaders expressed deep disappointment about the court’s ruling. Derrick Chitala, general secretary of the Zambia Democratic Congress, said: “Once again the courts have failed us. We have consistently tried to use civilised methods of seeking solutions to political problems. But now we are being forced to use other means.”
Chitala said the opposition parties will be forced to use alternative means, which he described as “mass action”. He did not specify what he meant.
But Kenneth Kaunda, the former state president who leads the United National Independence Party, said earlier this week, ahead of the supreme court ruling, that whatever the judges’ decision, Chiluba was “still in trouble”.
Kaunda is reported in The Chronicle, a local weekly, as saying he was ready to be arrested and charged with treason. “I am ready to go to jail for my country. These thieves called MMD government will jail me only once, and thereafter the opposition will take over the leadership of this country,” he said.
Lawyers for the petitioners who brought the DNA application are still optimistic. Sakwiba Sikota said: “It’s not the end. This is just one small part of the matter. We are still going ahead.”