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Alleged govt interference with judiciary is frightening – Harrington

COMMENT - What the country needs is a Constitution that clearly separates hiring/appointment decisions and budgets between the 3 branches of government (judiciary, legislature and executive), as well as between the party in government, the government, and the civil service (including parastatals).

Alleged govt interference with judiciary is frightening – Harrington
By Kombe Chimpinde
Fri 10 Sep. 2010, 04:01 CAT

FORMER transport and communications minister William Harrington yesterday described MMD national chairman Michael Mabenga's statements that the government had helped expelled Chilanga member of parliament Ng’andu Magande to win the Chilanga seat through a court ruling as frightening.

In an interview with the Post Online, Harrington said the statement brought out serious questions on the government interference in the judiciary.

“The revelation by the MMD government that it exerts pressure on the judiciary to pass judgments in their favour is frightening ,” Harrington said.

“It’s an open secret that the admission by Mabenga that the MMD had in the past influenced the decisions of the court is extremely frightening.”

He said ensuring that the judiciary is independent was in the interest of every Zambian, adding that Mabenga's statement proved that there had been interference obtaining in the judicial system.

Recently MMD national chairman Micheal Mabenga had said that people like Magande must not claim that they had a lot of support in their areas (Chilanga Constituency) as it took help from the party to help them win the election through the court.

“People like Magande could not have won elections in Chilanga without the help from government. Magande had won through a court ruling,” Mabenga said earlier in an interview with Post Online.

He wondered what kind of picture the MMD was sending to Zambians by making such a statement.

Harrington also observed that the decision by judge Evans Hamaundu to reject an application that sought to register the London judgment that found former president Frederick Chiluba and others liable of stealing from Zambians was unfortunate.

“The government is using its judicial arm to block the judgment from being registered in Zambia again as things stand now it seems President Banda and Chiluba have something to hide or afraid of the consequences when the judgment is registered,” he said.

“If anything, if President Rupiah Banda and his government want to assist Chiluba he should actually be in the forefront of getting the London judgment registered in Zambia so that Chiluba can be availed an opportunity to prove his innocence in inverted commas.”

He warned that Chiluba's cases were going to catch up with him despite the current protection from the government through their refusal to appeal and cautioned him not to celebrate judge Hamaundu’s ruling as it was not only injurious to the people of Zambia but that the case could be reinstated in due course.

And commenting on the revelation that Bharti Airtel has been engaging government to intervene in the negotiation process by the Security Exchange Commission SEC on the price of Zain Zambia Harrington said this was a clear breach of the Constitution amounting to corruption by government.

“This issues are a breach of the Constitution. Why are they by-passing the Zambia Privatization Agency(ZPA) to negotiate or the Zambia Development Agency. That is a form of corruption and has left our systems rotten to the very core,” charged Harrington.

Labels: CORRUPTION, JUDICIARY, WILLIAM HARRINGTON

posted by MrK @ 4:30 AM