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Chiluba is cheating himself over immunity – Kabimba

Chiluba is cheating himself over immunity – Kabimba
Written by Ernest Chanda
Tuesday, October 06, 2009 7:42:58 AM

LUSAKA lawyer Wynter Kabimba has said Frederick Chiluba is cheating himself because there is no law which provides for an automatic restoration of immunity on a former head of state that had previously been stripped of it.

Commenting on Chiluba's claim last week that his immunity was restored automatically the moment he was acquitted of his theft charges, Kabimba said immunity is only automatically conferred on a person the moment they become head of state.

"First of all I have not found anywhere in the Constitution where the law provides for conferring of immunity on a private citizen like Chiluba. And in any case, immunity is not applied for and conferred to someone by Parliament, no.

Immunity is automatically bestowed upon a person the moment they become head of state. In this circumstance, there is no need to apply for such immunity; the law simply confers that on that particular person. As for restoration of such immunity, the Constitution is silent. So I don't know where Chiluba got that idea from," Kabimba said. "And Parliament is not mandated by law to confer immunity on anyone, save for stripping a person of such immunity for a specific purpose. I'm sure that even our Parliament will not entertain such a joke. They will ask Chiluba to cite a law, which empowers Parliament to confer someone with immunity. They might even tell him that they have no such legal mandate. The only mandate Parliament has is to remove a head of state's immunity to make them open to prosecution. As for restoration, I can't find any such provision in the current Constitution."

Kabimba said there were other issues pertaining to Chiluba's 10-year rule, which could be brought up by the people anytime.

"Let us go to the statements made by former Task Force on Corruption chairman Maxwell Nkole about three days before he was fired. Nkole said Chiluba may have been acquitted on that charge, but that there were other cases pending which could not be brought on him at the same time, lest the public thought that he was being victimised. So, this is not the end of every misdeed about Chiluba's rule. There are other issues which ought to be brought to court against him," he said.

Kabimba said as the situation still stands, Chiluba is a private citizen who is open to prosecution whenever he commits a crime.

"Chiluba may wish to argue his case as a private citizen but Parliament will also ask him under which law they should confer immunity on him. I'm sure even his lawyers know that it's a weak case because if it wasn't, my colleague [John] Sangwa would have filed for that restoration in court. So for now, Chiluba is still a private citizen who can be prosecuted any time he committed a crime, even for crimes he may have committed some time back," said Kabimba.

On Thursday last week, Chiluba claimed that his immunity had been restored the moment he was acquitted of his theft charges by the Lusaka magistrate court.

Chiluba said his application to Parliament for the same immunity was just a moral issue rather than a legal issue.

Labels: CHILUBA, LEGAL IMMUNITY, WYNTER KABIMBA

posted by MrK @ 6:44 AM