A former senior assistant Intelligence Officer in the Office of the President at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport is seeking for leave to apply for Judicial Review in the Lusaka High Court against the decision of the Office of the President Director General, Special Division to terminate her employment without following procedure.

Bangladesh Mombelela has cited the Attorney General as respondent in the matter.

She wants a stay of execution of the decisions of the Director General Office of the President, costs and any other reliefs the court may deem fit.

Mombelela is further seeking an order of certiorari to “remove” into the Lusaka High Court for the purposes of quashing the decisions of the Magistrate Class 1 for lack of jurisdiction in so far as it purported to hear and determine matters that it had no such jurisdiction over.

And subsequently, that all decisions that followed are rooted or emanated from an illegality thereof, and are void, without which they would not have been made.

Mombelela wants, if leave is granted, for it to operate as a stay of all decisions of the Magistrate Class 1 in the matter and execution pending the full determination of the matter or until any further order or direction of the court.

According to an affidavit in support of ex-parte summons for an order for leave to move for judicial review filed in the Lusaka High Court recently, Mombelela stated that on July 4, last year, she received a note from the officer in charge Office of the President (SD) at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport (KKIA), indicating commencement of disciplinary measures against her for alleged misconduct during duty on June 17, 2019.

She stated that she wrote an exculpatory letter on July 5, 2019 to the officer in charge and a report of what transpired when she was on duty on the material day.

Mombelela, however, stated that she was on July 8, 2019 suspended from duty without any response to her letter of July 5, 2019.

“On August 2, 2019, the officer in charge Office of the President (SD) at KKIA by a letter, rejected my exculpatory. On September 3, 2019, I received a letter from the Director General Office of the President, Special Division dismissing me from the service without being heard by any disciplinary body in the service,” she stated.

Mombelela stated that on September 11, 2019, she appealed to the Appeals Tribunal of the Office of the President special division against her dismissal from the service but her appeal was rejected on October 14, without being heard by the Tribunal.

“I verily believe that this is a case fit for further investigation and merits the Court’s further consideration, and therefore , hence this my application for an order for leave to move for judicial review, which I believe that if the leave sought is so granted, this will not prejudice any other parties or process in any way but conversely, it will serve the interests of justice,” she stated.

Mombelela also stated in a notice containing statement in support of an ex-parte application for an order for leave to move for judicial review, that she had her employment terminated for alleged misconduct without hearing or being subjected to due process.

She stated that the said decision to terminate her employment was illegal, irrational and procedurally improper.