Maravi

A thief defending a policeman

A thief defending a policeman
Written by Editor

There is something seriously wrong when a thief begins to defend a policeman.Thieves are not supposed to be friends with policemen. In a normal world, thieves run away when they see a policeman coming. A passing police car is enough to drive them into flight. In our country, the Director of Public Prosecutions plays a role that is not supposed to be popular with thieves.

His job is to prosecute thieves and put them away so that they cannot harm society. The Director of Public Prosecutions is supposed to put away thieves regardless of their status. His judgments and decision making ought to be blind to status and other non legal considerations.

This is what makes the defence of Chalwe Mchenga, Director of Public Prosecutions, by Frederick Chiluba very strange. How can a man who is facing allegations of theft become the defender of the Director of Public Prosecutions? Today we see Chiluba, through his spokesman, calling upon the Law Association of Zambia to defend Mchenga. This is strange indeed. Why is Chiluba defending Mchenga? What do they have in common? Why has Chiluba become the spokesman for Mchenga?

We say this because the Law Association of Zambia has finally taken a position on the Chiluba acquittal and said that Mchenga ought to have appealed. The Law Association of Zambia has gone on to say that as far as it is concerned, there are good grounds for appeal. In the wake of the position taken by the Law Association of Zambia, Chiluba has now turned round and is saying the Law Association should be defending Mchenga. Why should it take Chiluba to tell the Law Association of Zambia that it should defend Mchenga?

Liars are shameless. This is what we are seeing in the way that Chiluba is behaving. This is the way he has always behaved. Shamelessness is the hallmark of the way that he lives his life. This is what he calls dribbling. For him dribbling means having no fixed position on anything; lying even when the truth is there for all to see.

It is less than a month ago when the same Chiluba told FODEP to keep quiet about his demand for immunity because only the Law Association of Zambia should comment. He said this because according to him, FODEP was not competent to comment on legal matters and according to him commenting on legal matters was a preserve of the Law Association of Zambia. Now that the Law Association of Zambia has given its position on the acquittal and taken a position that is not favourable to his expectation, the same Chiluba who said FODEP should not comment on legal matters but let the Law Association do it , is today criticising the Law Association. But this should not surprise us. This is how liars behave. They are permanently wedded to their lies.

This is why Chiluba cannot see the absurdity of him, as an accused person, defending Mchenga. Chiluba is so blinded by his own lies that he cannot see this contradiction. Chiluba refuses to see that this behaviour is confirming what many of our people have known – that Mchenga’s refusal to appeal has nothing to do with principles but is a political fix which Chiluba and his newly found benefactor, Rupiah Banda, are responsible for. For this reason, Rupiah and Chiluba must find ways to defend their shameful scheme regardless of how ridiculous and ludicrous they might be.

When people lie and believe that lies will help them, they believe their own propaganda. This is what is happening to Chiluba. This is what explains Mike Mulongoti’s defence of the indefensible.

What Chiluba is saying about the Director of Public Prosecutions should make Mchenga realise that he is finished. As young as he is, he has no soul. He has lost his feelings for right and wrong. Mchenga has no reason to expect anyone to respect him. The only people that are going to pretend to respect Mchenga are crooks like Chiluba because it serves them well. Mchenga is blocking the appeal against Chiluba’s acquittal and Chiluba is returning the favour by becoming the public defender of Mchenga. Chiluba even has the courage to complain against a prosecutor to the Law Association on behalf of Mchenga. If Mchenga has any morality left in him, he would do well to stop Chiluba from being his public relations officer. When a known thief defends the office of the chief prosecutor, then everybody knows that such a chief prosecutor is not worth his salt; he must be doing something wrong! Mchenga is a real disgrace to his legal fraternity.

Mchenga represents the type of professional that has let down our people for many years. Such people accept jobs but fail to stand for the integrity that those offices demand. No one can deny that the office of Director of Public Prosecutions is a demanding office. This is exactly why it is supposed to be operating in a respectable way. Mchenga enjoys security of tenure. No one can fire him for doing his job. This should give him independence. But it takes honesty, integrity and courage to enjoy independence in decision making. Mchenga has consistently showed us that he is a spineless wimp who has shown us that he has no courage to stand against his political masters. Mchenga’s only contribution to the office of Director of Public Prosecutions seems to be the destruction of the respect that the office should enjoy among our people.

As for Chiluba, our people know him. His new found defenders such as Mulongoti have made sure that we all understand how his acquittal came about. This is what happens when people think that everything must be done crookedly. They end up making fools of themselves. Who is ever going to believe that Chiluba was genuinely acquitted?

What is Mchenga going to tell the Law Association of Zambia? That they don’t know what they are talking about? That because he has a constitutional mandate to make the decision whether or not to appeal the Chiluba acquittal, he is the only one who possesses the wisdom to understand the case?

Many things have conspired to demonstrate the illegitimacy of the Chiluba acquittal. The position taken by the Law Association of Zambia clearly demonstrates that there was something wrong with the acquittal. If the Law Association of Zambia had kept quiet, some of our people would have continued wondering whether there was something wrong with Chiluba’s acquital. Now that the Law Association has spoken, the air around the issue is clear.

If the Task Force had not decided to appeal, we have no doubt that Mchenga and his handlers would have hidden behind the failure to appeal. That decision to appeal also conspired to expose the crookedness of what was going on. Mchenga was forced to expose the scheme that he had hatched with George Kunda and their paymaster Rupiah. Mchenga even went and withdrew an appeal claiming that the prosecutors had no legal power to file an appeal. We demonstrated to him that he lied. His position on the law was wrong. In his slithery fashion, Mchenga shamelessly changed his position saying the appeal was weak and there were no grounds for appeal. Today the Law Association of Zambia has let it be known that in fact, Mchenga lied; the appeal is good and there are no reasonable grounds for withdrawing it.

As though this was not enough, Mulongoti has come up to provide the clearest explanation of this scam that anyone could ask for. In the light of what Mulongoti has said, can Mchenga continue to claim that he is independent and that his decision not to appeal was based upon professional reasoning? If the courts, according to Mulongoti, are expected to decide on the basis of politics, what about Mchenga? There is no doubt that the politicians have no problems dealing with this wimp.

We can now clearly see that it is important for everyone to do their part and be principled. If Maxwell Nkole, the former Task Force chairman, had not courageously appealed and if the Law Association of Zambia did not make its position clear, these crooks could have been able to cheat our people about the reasons for their decisions. But today no one has any reason to be in doubt. The writing is there for all to see.

This should also serve as a good reminder to the Law Association of Zambia of the important role that it plays in maintaining the rule of law in our country. It cannot be denied that the Law Association of Zambia has played a very significant role in moving the rule of law. We all remember how the Law Association of Zambia played a pivotal role in stopping Chiluba’s third term. The Law Association of Zambia also played a key role in ensuring that Levy Mwanawasa continued to fight corruption. No one can deny the role that the Law Association of Zambia played in ensuring that the Kashiwa Bulaya case was not derailed by George and Mchenga. This was only possible because the Law Association of Zambia was prepared to be forthright and outspoken about issues. We hope that the Law Association of Zambia will continue to defend the interests of the majority of our people and guard against pandering to the interests of the powerful. This is what our people expect from their lawyers.

Labels: CHALWE MCHENGA, CHILUBA, CORRUPTION, DPP

posted by MrK @ 4:40 PM