Court to hear application seeking to halt impeachment proceedings

HEARING of an application to halt proceedings in a matter where two private citizens have sued the State over the Speaker™s decision to table in Parliament the impeachment motion of President Edgar Lungu is today expected to take off in the Lusaka High Court. This is an application to stay proceedings pending determination of the appeal of Chishimba Kambwili and UPND Mazabuka Central MP Garry Nkombo not to be joined to the impeachment case. Meanwhile, Mr Robert Chabinga and Mr Henry Mulenga being the applicants in the matter filed a notice to raise preliminary issues on Mr Kambwili and Mr Nkombo™s application for stay. The applicants raised two issues being; whether or not Mr Kambwili and Mr Nkombo are allowed at law to apply to stay the proceedings in which they are not party and that costs of proceedings be borne to them. Earlier, mover of the motion UPND whip, Mr Nkombo and Roan MP Mr Kambwili being the seconder, appealed to the High Court of Appeal, the High Court™s decision not to join them to the case. The two had since applied for the court to stay proceedings in the matter until their appeal was heard. They argued that their appeal had high prospects of succeeding. They contended that if the proceedings in the High Court were not stayed, their appeal would be rendered insignificant and academic. The law makers also claimed that the issues raised in the impeachment case were of a national character and as such ought to be dealt with bearing in mind the larger interest of the nation. They further claimed that it was a fit and proper case for which the court would stay proceedings pending determination of the appeal and that no prejudice would be suffered by the applicants. In this matter, Mr Chabinga and Mr Mulenga sued the Attorney General in the Lusaka High Court over the Speaker™s decision to table the impeachment motion of President Lungu in parliament. And High Court Judge Banda Bobo has since refused to join the two parliamentarians on grounds that they, despite being the movers of the motion, did not have sufficient interest to warrant them being joined. Judge Bobo said the two were forum shopping by seeking to be joined to judicial review on impeachment on matters that were already before the Constitutional Court.