Maravi

Let’s do the right thing and avert a crisis

Let’s do the right thing and avert a crisis
By Editor
Fri 20 Aug. 2010, 04:00 CAT

In every society, there are men of base instincts. The man who abides by unjust laws and permits any man to steal the meagre financial resources of his poor people, to trample on and mistreat the country in which he was born, is not an honourable man. And it doesn’t matter what title he holds, he can be his excellency, honour, lord, grace and so on and so forth. He will still remain a man without honour.

In the world, there must be a certain degree of honour just as there must be a certain amount of light. When there are many men without honour, there are always others who bear in themselves the honour of many men. These are the men who every day risk their lives to question and denounce that which is wrong; these are the men who denounce those who steal from their people and those who protect thieves who have stolen from the people; that is to say, those who voice out against those who steal human honour itself. In those men, thousands more are contained, an entire people is contained, human dignity is contained.

And we are using the term “men” not as a means to discriminate against women, rather as a generic term encompassing the species, men and women.

It is understandable that honest people and all those who are against corruption and abuse of power are considered enemies of state institutions and those who manage them in a Republic where the president is best friends with a man who has been found to have stolen millions of dollars from state coffers, and has even hired this same thief to be his political advisor and consultant going round campaigning for him.

We were not surprised yesterday to hear that Ronnie Shikapwasha, the vuvuzela of this corrupt government, has announced that they have no intention of appealing against the decision by Lusaka High Court judge Evans Hamaundu to throw out the Attorney General’s application to register the London High Court judgment which found Frederick Chiluba and seven members of his tandem of thieves liable for theft of about US $46 million.

Shikapwasha says this government has more important things to pursue than appeal against judge Hamaundu’s decision and subsequently undermine the work of the judiciary.

It was not difficult to guess how things were going to turn out in this whole matter. From the time they conspired to have Chiluba acquitted in the corruption proceedings against him and refused to have that acquittal appealed, it was clear to all that these same people were not going to have the London High Court judgment enforced by themselves against this valuable friend of theirs whom they have hired to help them win next year’s elections.

They have not even attempted to cover matters. They have not bothered in the least to conceal what they are doing. They think they have deceived the people with their lies, but they have ended up deceiving themselves. They feel themselves lords and masters of the universe, with the power to get whatever they want – if they want anyone acquitted, this happens; and if they want anyone convicted and sent to jail, this also happens.

This reminds us of Dante who divided his inferno into nine circles. He put the criminals in the seventh, the thieves in the eighth and the traitors in the ninth. Difficult dilemma the devils will be faced with, when they try to find an adequate spot for this man’s soul – if this man has a soul. The man who stole from the poorest of the poor of this country doesn’t have even a heart.

To believe for a single moment that what they are doing or what they have done is justice would suffice to fill a man of conscience with remorse and shame for the rest of his life. There is no justice in all this. All there is in this is fraud, deception and abuse of power, so we shall not mince any words about their corruption and their abuse of state institutions to cover up the crimes of their league.

Rupiah Banda has referred to Chiluba as a damn good president and has pronounced him innocent. This being the case, who among Rupiah’s appointees can have the courage to challenge this?

We know that a good part of our judiciary serves at the pleasure of Rupiah. He single-handedly offers contracts to judges who have reached retirement age. And how many judges in this country are today serving at his pleasure under such arrangements? And how many others are looking up to Rupiah for similar contracts? This is certainly not a recipe for an independent judiciary. What we have is a captive judiciary. And how many judges and other judiciary officers are looking up to Rupiah for promotion?
Again, this is not a recipe for an independent and impartial adjudication.

It therefore doesn’t surprise us that the government will not appeal judge Hamaundu’s highly questionable decision to allow Chiluba to keep his loot in Zambia. This is not justice, but a mockery of it.

There are many unpleasant things about our judiciary. But as long as those in charge of the affairs of our judiciary are in good terms with those running the executive, nothing will happen to change things. This will remain for a long time until our people can no longer tolerate it.

We are not alone in this situation. This is exactly what the Kenyans have gone through. And today, the Kenyans have decided to change things for the better and have come up with a constitution that totally curtails the president’s powers to abuse the judiciary.

They have decided to start afresh, and they are dissolving the entire judiciary and will replace it with fresh appointments. The executive and the legislature have also been separated. Ministers in Kenya will no longer be appointed from members of parliament. This will also mean that parliament will be more independent of the executive.
All appointments of judges, and indeed of ministers, will have to be passed by parliament.

And this is not in the way we are doing it now where we have a parliament that is simply an extension of the executive and as such whatever the president wants literally goes through.

We may be still far away from where the Kenyans have reached, but a day will come when things will have to change. We can’t continue on this path and hope to build a prosperous and democratic nation. We are headed for disaster, and one of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognise a problem before it becomes an emergency.
The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.

Today, those in charge of our state institutions – the legislature, the executive and the judiciary – are all in one way or another abusing the power vested in them with impunity. There is increasing collusion and complicity among these three institutions of our state. The separation of powers among our state institutions is not there in practice – it’s simply a theoretical one. Again, this is not a recipe for governing well.

The country is collapsing, the rule of law is breaking down. At the rate we are going, we will start to witness things we are not accustomed to. Soon, people will be denouncing judges openly without even fear of being locked up for contempt.

And people shouldn’t cheat themselves that going to jail on contempt is something that will keep people away from pointing out the naked transgressions in our whole judicial process. At some point in one’s life, fear is pushed to the background, and the forces of evil are taken on without respite. We are nearing that point; the signs are clearly written on our walls.

But with the leadership and commitment by the best and the most noble of our politicians, of our judges and other civic leaders, this can be avoided. There is no need to pretend that all is well and it’s just a few disgruntled elements at The Post causing problems.

Displeasure and dissent is growing against the way state institutions are being run. And the only way to calm things down and avert a crisis is to do the right thing. Every citizen now knows what is going on in their state institutions, and most of them don’t like it at all. This rot has to stop. Again, let’s pay attention to what is happening in Kenya and learn something from it.

We are not suggesting that we imitate the Kenyans; we are simply saying let’s learn something from their experiences and the solutions that they are coming up with. Look at their constitution review process and compare it with ours. Look at the constitution they have come up with and compare it with the joke, the rubbish, the mediocrity of our National Constitutional Conference.

Let’s do the right thing and avert a national crisis!

Labels: CORRUPTION, COURTS, EVANS HAMAUNDA, FREDERICK CHILUBA

posted by MrK @ 7:16 PM