Chief Justice eager for autonomy of judiciary

Chief Justice eager for autonomy of judiciary
By Mwala Kalaluka
Wed 07 Apr. 2010, 04:01 CAT

CHIEF Justice Ernest Sakala yesterday disclosed that he is eager for an entrenchment of a law that will make the Zambian judiciary financially autonomous.

And President of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Lebedev said the judiciary system in his country is working at improving the information and technology communication to improve the system’s effectiveness.

Chief Justice Sakala said this during a conducted tour for Lebedev and his delegation at the Lusaka High Court.

“We have talked so much in my chambers. Some of the things we discussed relate to financial autonomy,” Chief Justice Sakala told a group of High Court justices.

“In Russia they have a specific law that guarantees financial autonomy of the judiciary.”

Chief Justice Sakala said Lebedev briefed him that during the global economic crisis, the Russian government had wanted to reduce the budget of the judiciary by five per cent but that the judiciary resisted the move.

“So while the budgets for other ministries were reduced, the budget for the judiciary was not reduced,” Justice Sakala said.

Justice Sakala said he hoped the Zambian judiciary could have a law like that too.

“We presented this law to His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zambia,” said Justice Sakala. “They are studying it. We hope it will be accepted.”

And Lebedev said the Russian judiciary was instituting measures of combating the problem of terrorism and cyber crime.

He said the recent terrorist attacks in Moscow were matters close to the people’s hearts.

Lebedev said the judiciary in Russia would fight terrorism through special legal procedure, especially that although there was a legal provision for death penalty in that country, the courts were not prescribing such punishments.

Lebedev said in most instances the death penalty was substituted by life imprisonment.

Lebedev said Russian courts have had a problem of dealing with so many cases given the fact that the country was spread across 11 time zones.

He said one way of improving the justice delivery system was through the increase in the number of judges and introduction of advanced technologies such as teleconferencing.

Lebedev said teleconferencing was a much cheaper way of handling cases.

“The main task now is to do all cases in the reasonable period,” said Lebedev.

“You see, it’s not only one measure but there is a complex of measures that help us do our job.”