GOVERNANCE activist Brebner Changala has called on the new dawn administration to allow the current Constitutional Court Judges to re-apply through a proper vetting system saying they need to be re-examined.
A Copperbelt based woman recently wrote to the Judiciary complaining that a judge of the Constitutional Court had sex with her from when she was 14 years old, and as such, was not fit to be on the bench.
Commenting on the development, Changala said no due diligence or background checks were conducted on the current ConCourt Judges.
“The Judiciary in this country is under siege in that it has no public confidence which is supposed to be the bedrock of their integrity. But most importantly, the Constitutional Court has been a controversy from the day it was set up mainly in the manner the Judges were appointed by the previous regime. Many of them were not qualified, many of them did not meet the constitutional requirements for one to be a constitutional Judge and that was highlighted, but it was ignored by both the Executive and the Legislature. The Constitutional Court was created in good faith but constituted the Judges in bad faith. I am not surprised that the issues of what the lady raised would haunt the Constitutional Court because there was no due diligence and background checks as to men and women who are going to hold the offices to interpret the constitution of the land,” Changala said.
He, therefore, called on the new dawn administration to allow the current ConCourt Judges to re-apply through a proper vetting system.
“And as a result on the bench, we have what I may call ‘the rocks’ who went there to serve personal interests and the interests of the appointing authority. Men and Women who went to serve their own interests. You can see that their judgements are always partisan and controversial. What the lady has done is to expose what the people of Zambia had known all along. The ConCourt in its current form is not ideal to continue with the current office bearers. I ask the New Dawn administration to send everybody on the ConCourt on leave. Allow them to re-apply through a proper vetting system which must include the Africa Bar Association, the Commonwealth Bar Association and the Law Association of Zambia, to re-examine the applicants,” Changala said.
“They have fractured many lives and destroyed our constitutional democracy to some larger extent. We don’t need an apprentice to decide the future of the nation or any individual. We need the Constitutional Court but the current office bearers must re-apply and the decisions of the ConCourt must be appealable when people are not happy.”
Changala also accused the Judges of passing controversial rulings.
“It is a danger that we have experienced that the ConCourt is the court of first incidence, it can’t be. And they are not ashamed to pass controversial court rulings which do not make sense. I will give an example of the third term bid. It had the audacity to tell us that whosoever has held office twice is not a stand alone declaration, it must be married by a term. That was to accommodate their godfather. When the lady comes on board, she has just come to confirm the long time view that our colleagues on the bench are tainted,” said Changala.