Maravi

Abolish the Supreme Court!

COMMENT - What is needed is not the abolition of the Supreme Court, but a Constitution which clearly separates the branches of government - as well as separates the state, the government, and the party in government. And does so through hiring/appointments and budgets.

Abolish the Supreme Court!
By The Editor
Wed 25 Aug. 2010, 04:00 CAT

It only takes a little honesty – if a little is all one has – to see that Rupiah Banda and his friends are not interested in fighting corruption.

From the time that Rupiah took over as President, it has been clear that his government does not have any problems with those who have plundered and continue to plunder our national resources. Rupiah and the minions closest to him have made it very clear that they support these criminal elements and will do whatever it takes to protect them.

Rupiah cannot today say that his government is serious about fighting corruption. His assertion that they have passed a law to fight corruption is nonsense. We say this because laws do not implement themselves but they are implemented by people. Rupiah and his minions have ensured that they have taken full charge of the decision-making process in the implementation of the laws that are meant to fight corruption.

There is not a single professional employed in the government today capable of taking prosecution decisions in which Rupiah and some of his league are interested without his approval. We all know what happened to former chairman of the Task Force on Corruption Maxwell Nkole when he tried to push for the appeal against the acquittal of Frederick Chiluba.

Nkole was fired! And Rupiah told the nation that Nkole’s decision to appeal was a mark of indiscipline. Rupiah had decided that there was to be no appeal in this case and, therefore, Nkole’s attempt was taken as a direct challenge to Rupiah. And accordingly, Rupiah decided to show Nkole who the boss is and had him fired unceremoniously. This is the way that Rupiah relates to all those who are meant to implement the laws designed to fight corruption.

The Anti Corruption Commission is nothing short of a toothless bulldog. All muscle, but no teeth to bite. The little law that we know and the public record of the experience of the Task Force clearly demonstrates that there is really nothing wrong with the laws that are in place to fight corruption. The Task Force, although with great difficulty, was able to secure a number of significant convictions which clearly demonstrated that laws are available, but are they used?

We know that Rupiah’s government does not allow any of these institutions to operate independently. We have not forgotten what happened when the Anti Corruption Commission decided to arrest the Food Reserve Agency executive director Anthony Mwanaumo. They were basically ordered to stop the prosecution. We also know that the senior officer who drove the process of pushing this and other similar cases had her contract terminated.

And it is not difficult to see that Rupiah is a friend and protector of the corrupt because all the corrupt elements are today defending him, he is their darling. Show us one corrupt element in this country who is not today happy with Rupiah? Rupiah’s government is clearly a government of the corrupt, by the corrupt, for the corrupt.

Of course, no one can say that the corruption that we see in Rupiah’s government today started today. It did not start today. It is simply deepening under Rupiah and really taking root because the whole government system is premised on corruption. Rupiah’s government cannot survive without corruption.

This is why they have no shame in championing calls for the abolition of the law against abuse of office. It is only people who know that they are abusing their offices, and intend to continue abusing their offices, who can call for official sanction of the crime of abuse of office. This is what their calls amount to. It is mockery for Rupiah to say his government is serious about fighting corruption.

It cannot be denied that Rupiah’s government is very serious about fighting their perceived political opponents in order to retain power at any cost. In this regard, they have no shame to abuse the judicial process to try and nail their enemies to the cross. This is the only time that the nation sees Rupiah pretending to be serious about fighting crime when in reality, all he wants to do is to fight those that he considers his enemies, politically or otherwise.

Today, Rupiah can claim to be running a government that respects the professionalism of the police when he is asked about what is going to happen to Lucy Changwe, his Deputy Minister for Gender, who remains in government even though it is in the public domain that she has committed a criminal offence. Rupiah would like the public to believe that he never instructs the police to arrest people. This man has no shame and tries to lie with a straight face. In the short time that he has been President, there are so many times when he has bellowed instructions to the police, ordering them to do as he pleases. Just two or so weeks ago, Rupiah ordered the police in Ndola to release taxi drivers who they had arrested in the belief that they had breached the law by blocking George Kunda’s motorcade. Rupiah hoped that that gesture would win him the Chifubu parliamentary by-election. And according to him, he invoked his powers as commander-in-chief to release them. Isn’t this interference with the work of the police? Isn’t this giving orders to the police on who they should arrest and prosecute and on who they shouldn’t?

And who has forgotten how Rupiah had instructed the police during a State House press conference to arrest us for circulating pornography and indeed our news editor Chansa Kabwela was arrested and prosecuted according to Rupiah’s wishes.

And today, this same man wants to tell the nation he doesn’t interfere in police work.

The nation knows that Rupiah and his minions decided not to appeal against the acquittal of Chiluba. There is nothing that anybody, in government, was going to do to reverse the decision Rupiah had made. To justify the decision not to appeal, Rupiah and his circle of sycophants decided to use a claim that has now become very common, that their refusal to appeal was out of respect for the judiciary. There is only one problem with that, and that is the decision whether not to appeal was not for Rupiah to make. It was ultimately supposed to be made by the Director of Public Prosecutions Chalwe Mchenga or even a public prosecutor in charge of the matter. But Rupiah and his minions took over Mchenga’s powers and made the decision for him. And today, very few people doubt that the decision was not made by Mchenga. Everybody knows that Mchenga was merely doing his master’s bidding. And moreover, Rupiah himself made it clear that he had decided not to appeal Chiluba’s acquittal.

Again, they are saying the same thing in regard to appealing judge Evans Hamaundu’s refusal to register the London High Court judgment against Chiluba and his tandem of thieves. Rupiah’s argument is that appealing would be undermining the courts. If matters are supposed to be determined in the Magistrates' Court and in the High Court without appeal, then the Supreme Court should be abolished. But not surprising, these same characters who think appealing any court’s decision undermines the judiciary have no problem helping their corrupt friends to appeal unfavourable judgments. And they are even proposing to add another court – the court of appeal – to our existing courts of appeal. This only goes to show their dishonesty and the hypocrisy that they live with. Anyway, even Zaire’s Mobutu claimed to respect the professionalism of the police and the judiciary. But did he really respect any professionalism?

Today, Rupiah’s government is running the propaganda department for the plunderers using the state-owned and government-controlled media. They even want our people to believe that Chiluba and his tandem of thieves were reprieved by the Court of Appeal in London. Anyway, this is what criminals like to do – tell lies and, therefore, continue to cheat people out of what is duly theirs. Chiluba has never appealed anywhere. The partners of the law firm that Chiluba, Faustin Kabwe and their league of criminals were using to move money were the ones that appealed. The Court of Appeal reprieved them on the basis that it was not sure that as lawyers, they knew the criminality of what Chiluba, Kabwe and other criminals were involved in.

There is nothing in the Court of Appeal that cleanses Chiluba and his fellow crooks from all the filth that they have to carry for the rest of their days on this planet. Everything else they are saying on this score is a lie, a falsehood. Chiluba and his league know that their other lawyers in London – Cave Malik and Company – have had to pay the government of the Republic of Zambia for their part in this criminal conspiracy to defraud the poor people of Zambia of their very limited financial resources. If Chiluba is innocent, why was he scared to allow himself to be tested by cross-examination by the prosecutor in our courts so that he could explain the sources of monies that he claims to be his? No amount of propaganda, posturing will cleanse and absolve Chiluba of his crimes against the poor people of Zambia.

Labels: JUDICIARY, SUPREME COURT

posted by MrK @ 5:55 AM