JCC at liberty to rehear my complaint - M’membe
THE Judicial Complaints Commission ( JCC) is at liberty to rehear my complaint against High Court Judge Sunday Nkonde as he was not cleared of allegations of gross misconduct, says Post Newspaper proprietor Fred M’membe.
Dr M’membe has objected to Judge Nkonde’s claim in a petition filed in the Constitutional Court that the JCC was interfering with his judicial discharge of his functions.
In his answer to Justice Nkonde’s petition, Dr M’membe argued that the JCC had not in any way breached the constitution by deciding to reopen a complaint filed against the Judge in 2017.
“JCC is at liberty to reopen or rehear the second respondent’s complaint due to the fact that the consent judgement dated 5 December, 2017, which quashed the initial finding if a prima facie case was not quashed on the basis that the petitioner had been cleared of the allegations of gross misconduct,” Dr M’membe said.
“The basis of the quashing of that decision was simply that the matter was still active at the time of the complaint and that the petitioner was supposedly not afforded the right to be heard,” he added.
Dr M’membe said that his complaint was against the overall misconduct of Justice Nkonde during the proceedings of the Post Newspaper liquidation, which had also been confirmed by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court in its judgement dated February 17, 2022, referred the Post Newspaper Limited liquidation case back to the High Court under a different judge to re-open the insolvency proceedings to ensure compliance with the relevant legal provisions.
Dr M’membe said his complaint was heard and determined in the absence of Judge Nkonde because he opted to ignore calls to respond to the allegations and also refused to avail himself before the committee.
Justice Nkonde in his petition alleges that the decision by JCC to rehear Dr M’membe’s complaint dated February 17, 2017, is interfering with the judicial discharge of his functions.
He is seeking determination of the breaches of the constitution by the JCC to reopen the complaint disregarding the ruling by the Kitwe High Court under cause no.2018/ HP/2011.
He stated that on November 9, 2020, High Court Judge Gertrude Chawatama rendered a ruling in which she guided that the right route Dr M’membe ought to have taken was to appeal to the Court of Appeal given the nature of the complaint.