They have destroyed the DEC

They have destroyed the DEC
By The Post
Fri 31 Dec. 2010, 04:00 CAT

The Drug Enforcement Commission has become increasingly associated with abuse of the criminal justice system by Rupiah Banda’s government. They may think or claim that this is unfortunate and unjustified because the DEC is “a professional organisation with officers of high integrity”.

But since this is what people think about the DEC, and indeed other law enforcement agencies, including our courts, it must be appreciated as a deeply-felt mistrust, rather than a momentary irritation or displeasure with what they are doing and the way they are conducting their business.

They cannot dismiss this as mere false perception.

The DEC, like other law enforcement agencies, is seen to be partial, discriminatory, malicious in its work.

It is seen to be favouring those in power and targeting their political opponents.

As things stand today, the DEC has lost the public respect and support it used to enjoy in its early years.

This is because it is no longer seen as an independent and impartial law enforcement agency of the state.

The DEC has openly embraced the political agenda of the MMD and those who control it. Look at the current investigations, and warn and caution statement, against Michael Sata over the US$100,000 he had received from a well-wisher.

They have confiscated two automobiles bought with that money. There is no top politician in this country who doesn’t receive money from supporters. How many people and organisations are contributing millions and billions of kwacha to Rupiah’s political campaign?

Have they ever followed any of these people or organisations? Politics and politicians, the world over, are funded by supporters and well-wishers. There can never be a sensible case of money laundering here.

This is simply politics started by the MMD through Edward Mumbi for pure political purposes. And the DEC is merely an agent of these MMD politicians in this matter.

The objective is clearly just to harass Michael and scare people from making any financial contributions to his campaign.

What integrity can the DEC claim to lie in this investigation of Michael and the warn and caution statement they have extracted from him?

The DEC shouldn’t forget that it was involved in an investigation against us after Rupiah accused us of having pocketed US$30 million from state institutions to build or buy mansions, strange cars, aeroplanes and so on and so forth.

This was not an investigation initiated by themselves. They were simply told by Rupiah to do so. They did so and found nothing. Rupiah lied to them about us.

But look at the harassment we were subjected to; look at the propaganda the DEC peddled against us; repeatedly telling the nation that their investigations have reached an advanced stage and have been extended to other countries.

They knew all along that this was a lie; their investigations had yielded nothing. But they had to tell a lie to support the political agenda of Rupiah against us.

What professional integrity can all the officers involved in these investigations claim?

What respect can they genuinely expect from this work?

Truly, the Zambian people are justified in attacking the DEC and accusing it of being used by Rupiah and his minions like George Kunda to persecute opposition leaders and other citizens they do not like.

And there is nothing unfortunate in these attacks against the DEC because it has lost its professional standing as an organisation, and there is no professional integrity its officers can claim.

DEC, as things stand today, is a discredited organisation with no professional standing in the eyes of our people; it is a destroyed organisation.

Yes, it is still operating, but it is dead inside.

And Fr Patrick Chibuye, a Catholic priest in Mpika, is right in his observation that the DEC has departed from its initial mandate of conducting impartial investigations and prosecutions because of a weak and corrupt government leadership that is abusing it.

It is true that we do have some well-trained, good and highly experienced professional officers at DEC, but these are not allowed to do their job in a professional way by politicians in government who cannot live a day without misusing and abusing power.

Their political masters are verse to exploiting, manipulating and compromising those under their authority.

Yes, we have some professionals at DEC, highly educated people, but they have been lobotomised and turned into MMD cadres and agents.

But the sad part is that the DEC is not the only organisation in our law enforcement and judicial system that has been made to serve the personal and political interests of Rupiah, George and their minions.

What we have said about the DEC equally holds for the Anti Corruption Commission, the police, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and indeed the judiciary.

As we have stated before, in every society throughout history, those who administer the criminal justice system hold power with potential for abuse and tyranny.

In the name of the state, injustice is done against innocent citizens.

No decent society, no society with principles, values and standards can tolerate such abuses.

The state must have the power to maintain order and punish criminal acts, but the rules and procedures by which it enforces its laws must be explicit, not secret, arbitrary or subject to political manipulation by those in control of the government and the ruling party.

This is what the rule of law requires – the right to equality before the law or equal protection of the law.

Whether rich or poor, political ally of those in power or opponent – all are entitled to equal protection before the law.

And under no circumstances should those in control of government and law enforcement agencies impose additional inequalities; they should be required to till evenly and equally with all our people.
But we also know that the independence of the judiciary is an essential pillar supporting the rule of law.

It is our strongly held view that our judiciary is not sufficiently independent.

We may have, and indeed we do have, some fairly independent-minded magistrates and judges, but the institution they work for is not sufficiently independent.

It is not enough to say that the courts should follow and apply the law faithfully and equally to all as our judicial oath expressly requires of our magistrates and judges.

One must in addition demand that there should be no dispensing power vested in the executive or other body which would relieve a person from the duties and processes of the law.

There is hardly a more powerful weapon which can be abused in the hands of a government than that of initiating and discontinuing prosecutions.

Our government has notoriously abused the prosecution process by harassing opponents of the regime through unjustifiable prosecutions or by exempting their own supporters from liability for illegal acts through the manipulation of the officers they control, directly or indirectly.

The judiciary, at whatever level, may find itself confronting these abuses, and may find itself subjected to enormous pressures to accept them.

Often, if the process is legal but unfair, there is little a court can do.

We need meaningful and effective separation of our courts of law from State House.

We say this because as long as judges are appointed, paid, promoted by persons or bodies controlled directly or indirectly by the President, our judges’ independence will continue to be more theoretical than real.

And as a result of this, they will continue to be manipulated and answer to the dictates of those in power, of State House and its agents.

What we have in this country is justice according to the wishes and dictates of State House.

And it reminds us of the old notion that those who adjudicated or settled cases were not expected to be in any real sense independent.

Thus in medieval England, from whose common law we have derived our legal system, justice was a royal prerogative, which the ruler carried out through his appointed officials or justices.

As such, not only was there no separation of powers, but those who judged were agents of those who ruled; while in theocratic societies, such as those where Islam was the state religion, judges had to conform to the dictates of the sacred law, as expressed in the Sharia and the Sunna.

The same observations apply to societies with customary legal systems.

This is more or less what we have in this country today – justice is according to the wishes and dictates of Rupiah with his justice minister George.

When everything is reviewed in the future, it will not be difficult to see what damage George has done to the integrity and efficiency of our country’s entire judicial process.

George has manipulated every aspect of our judicial process.

In a word, George has destroyed the integrity of the Anti Corruption commission, the Drug Enforcement Commission, the police, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and indeed our judiciary.

All these things will be known in the future because it will not be possible to hide them; they can hide what they have done and what they are doing today but tomorrow, all these things will be known.

It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes!