COMPROMISED BY POLITICS? A RESPONSE TO ‘THE JUDICIARY OF ZAMBIA’
We further learn from this opening paragraph that the goal of the judiciary’s press release is to dispel assertions ‘that suggest the institution’s alignment with individuals, particular tribes, or political parties…’.
This is a misrepresentation of what I said, one that lowers the integrity of the judiciary and deepens our suspicions of it. No one said the judiciary was aligned to any individuals, tribes, or parties. The central issue I raised in my article, and which remains unaddressed, is how those four judges were allocated all the PF v Sampa cases. I am questioning neither their competence nor their qualifications. I am interested in understanding how only Lozi-speaking judges, three of whom are Hichilema’s appointees, found themselves as judges on all the four cases involving PF v Sampa. An impartial judiciary that operates on a rule-based system should have no problem in citing the wsource of the authority that determines case allocation. It is important that the judiciary answer this question. We have seen other institutions bow down to the manoeuvres or wishes of the executive and are closely monitoring the judiciary to see how they respond to the matter of the PF’s leadership wrangles. Picking out the fact that all the cases involving the PF versus Sampa factions have been allocated to judges with very particular shared characteristics is important. How was this possible? Can the judiciary explain?
The Judiciary of Zambia: “Our commitment to upholding the rule of law is sacrosanct. The Judiciary is an organ of State (sic) dedicated to upholding the principles enshrined in the Constitution and is above individual, tribal or party alignment. It is therefore essential that we dispel any misconceptions that may undermine public confidence in not only the institution, but the country as a whole.”
Comment: This reasoning commits the fallacy of diversion. By asserting that ‘the judiciary…is dedicated to upholding the principles enshrined in the constitution’, the institution is attempting to duck the central issue I raised and give itself leave to treat any evidence suggesting anything to the contrary as impossible and unthinkable. The implication of this absurd claim that the judiciary always upholds constitutional principles is that the body is therefore above criticism, and that anybody claiming to see evidence of malpractice is necessarily incorrect and mischievous. From this premise, the response from the judiciary consequently implies that all proper procedures must have been followed in selecting the judges to hear particular cases. The response fails to even mention – let alone consider – the series of questions I posed, or to contemplate the possibility that the judges-in-charge might have been influenced in case allocation by State actors from outside the judiciary itself. This is a very un-judicial approach that entails entirely refusing to look at the evidence presented in form of the very specific questions I asked, but instead asserting that the judiciary always upholds constitutional principles. No such argument would be tolerated in a respectable court of law.
The Judiciary of Zambia: “The cause-listed matters annexed hereto are those before the Constitutional Court, the High Court General List, the High Court Economic and Financial Crimes Division, clearly indicating the allocation of matters before the courts, which is a preserve of the respective Judges-in-Charge.”
Comment: I never talked about the PF-related cases before all the mentioned courts. I talked about the cases involving Sampa v PF. Lumping the specific four cases I mentioned with a whole cause list of totally unrelated matters represents a clear attempt to conceal the real issues raised and set up the person making the argument as a target for demonisation. There are only FOUR cases involving Sampa vs the PF that are before the High Court and the Constitutional Court in Zambia – with none in the Economic and Financial Crimes Division. I conducted research before publishing my 19 January article and found these same four cases. The cause-listed matters supplied by the judiciary’s own press release does not dispute my findings. Based on this evidence, I asked a simple and straightforward question: why were all these four cases that are before different courts allocated to only Lozi-speaking judges, three of whom were appointed by President Hichilema? Was the allocation a coincidence or it was planned? This is the matter at hand.
Why is the judiciary consciously muddying the waters by throwing to the public a long list of cases before them that have absolutely nothing to do with the PF vs Sampa cases? This manner of arguing is very strange, coming from our arbiters. If this is the quality of our judiciary, then we are in trouble. Instead of reasserting its independence, the body is coming out like it has been compromised by politics and is subservient to the executive. In essence, the judiciary is manufacturing its own evidence to support its cause. In the process, the State institution wants to bury the matter being raised. The question is: what is the judiciary trying to hide? The central issue at hand is a matter that is one of the burning questions in the country today: the executive’s support for one faction in the main opposition party aimed at assassinating our multiparty democracy. Any alert and patriotic Zambian has the responsibility to stop these undemocratic schemes. Thus, when the court cases involving the two factions are all allocated to judges who were mostly appointed by someone who has an interest in the outcome, the public have reason to be suspicious and demand answers. How did these political cases end up with only Lozi-speaking judges or only justices appointed by Hichilema? The problem here is not even the judges who have been allocated these political cases. It is the source of the allocation. Can the judiciary explain how case allocation is done and why all these four cases involving the PF v Sampa ended up before judges of a particular kind?
As I wrote in the article that drew the attention of the Judiciary, I know that case allocation is done by the respective judgein-charge. What I do not know is whether there is an objective criterion that is followed by the judge-in-charge when allocating cases. For instance, at the High Court, does the judge-incharge sit with the Chief Justice, who is an ex-officio member of the High Court, every day after 5pm to see what cases have been filed that day and to allocate them to specific judges based on their relative experience, case load, competence, or independence from bias? Or is case allocation conducted by a computer, a lottery or the piki piki na piki doli approach? Or is everything left to the decision of the respective judgeby machines with no human agency? Whatever the system it uses, can the judiciary explain how it was possible that the respective judges-in-charge allocated all PF v Sampa cases to only Lozi-speaking judges? Is the number of Lozi judges in the judiciary so high that any case is, on average, likely to end up with a Lozi?