THREE Kulima Tower Bus drivers have threatened to sue station chairperson Tresford Mwila for failing to adhere to a court injunction which allowed them to operate at the bus station without intimidation.

On Thursday last week suspected PF cadres, including Mwila, assaulted and banned Kingsley Limbali, Gestable Chikambwe and Christopher Nengule from operating at Kulima Tower Bus Station, in breach of a High Court injunction.

The Lusaka High Court granted the drivers an interim injunction to continue operating from Kulima Tower Bus station after it was alleged that the Mwila and nine others had been denying them access to operate at the bus station.

Lawyer Mulambo Haimbe, who represented the drivers told News Diggers! in an interview that his clients would proceed to take the matter to court for contempt.

“The court granted an injunction to my clients Mr Kingsley Libali and others against Tresford Mwila and others who purport to run Kulima Tower bus station as an unlawful society. The consequence of these people being blocked by servants or agents of Mr Mwila is that Mr Mwila is in contempt of court. More importantly, they are in direct breach of the court order which guarantees my clients rights to use and operate from Kulima Tower as they did. So contempt proceedings will follow and those actions of blocking them are clearly illegal. It will go back to court because the actions are illegal and because they have allegedly assaulted my clients. He (Mwila) will be reported to police,” Haimbe said.

He said Mwila’s actions were a clear indication of the breakdown of the rule of law.

“The rule of law is about respecting commissions of law as they are put up whether the Constitution or Subsidiary legislation or indeed statutes of Parliament. Markets and bus stations act is very clear; it is only the local authority that is in charge to run and operate bus station. So this is a breakdown in the rule of law because it is understood that these individuals who are undertaking these actions are doing so quite clearly and quite contrary to the market and bus stations act. It is an illegality and in the past we have written to the Zambian police service to try and maintain harmony and yet our clients are not being protected,” said Haimbe.

“So it is a situation were certain citizens are denied the use of public facilities for what ever reason and nobody in terms of the Zambian police service and the local government are taking steps to prevent that. It is a clear breakdown of the rule of the law! It is showing that the space whether it is democratic or whatever the case might be; the space in terms of guaranteed human rights is shrinking rapidly in our country.”