Maravi

Mchenga has no integrity and must go

Mchenga has no integrity and must go
By The Post
Sun 05 June 2011, 04:01 CAT

The Director of Public Prosecution’s withdrawal of the appeal against Frederick Chiluba’s acquittal on the corruption charges he was facing has done a lot of damage to many things in our country.

And Musa Mwenye, president of the Law Association of Zambia, is right when he says that this case has not aided the development of law in our country and it has left many issues unsettled.

And we feel it has also aided or abated corruption in our country. It has encouraged impunity. It has also encouraged lawlessness. And we know that every lawless act leaves an incurable wound, like one left by a double-edged sword.

It is good that the Law Association of Zambia has decided to put the matter of the failure to appeal Chiluba’s questionable acquittal into proper perspective.

It is important that organisations such as the law association continue to guide our people and explain complex legal issues in a manner that many of our people can understand. It is very difficult to disagree with Musa when he says that the issue they are unhappy about is not whether or not Chiluba is guilty or innocent, but rather the fact that judicial processes have been called into question by Chalwe Mchenga’s recklessness.

A process that should have been allowed to proceed in a normal way was short-circuited to accommodate petty partisan and very narrow interests. Mchenga chose to allow politicians to abuse his power in order to pursue their political interests.

By this act, Mchenga abdicated his office and joined politicians in raping the sanctity of our Constitution and permanently scarring the integrity of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

What Mchenga has done will continue to haunt that office for many years to come. It is difficult for our people to believe that people who occupy that office make decisions in the general public interest. That damage has been done by Mchenga more than any other Director of Public Prosecutions before him.

We are not saying that other Director of Public Prosecutions have not had problems of their own. But what is clear is that Mchenga has taken issues to another level. It is difficult to think of any other Director of Public Prosecutions who has disgraced that office more than Mchenga has.

Even Director of Public Prosecutions in a one party state as Zambia was until 1991 behaved with more dignity, integrity and independence than Mchenga is showing today.

The little law that we have learnt has taught us that one of the ways of ensuring the independence of constitutional offices such as that of the Director of Public Prosecutions is to provide the occupants with security of tenure. This means that the person who occupies such an office cannot be fired in a willy-nilly way.

In theory, this is supposed to work very well because a Director of Public Prosecutions is able to work without fearing that the decisions that he or she takes could end up with them losing their job. But given what we have seen with Mchenga, maybe that should be left to a perfect world.

We say this because security of tenure does not seem to guarantee integrity in tenure. In fact, this security of tenure can be used to protect officers who do wrong things because they know they cannot easily be fired. Where does that leave us?

It seems to us that we must prize integrity above many other qualities that we look for in suitable constitutional office bearers. We say this because competence can be taught or acquired with experience, and where it lacks, it can be borrowed or sourced in many ways.

But integrity cannot easily be taught, especially to those that have learnt to reap the benefits of lacking integrity.

This seems to be Mchenga’s problem. We are not qualified to judge whether Mchenga is legally competent or incompetent, as surprising as that might sound given what we have said about him before.

We say this because we have never worked with him to assess whether he is competent or not. But one thing that we are sure of because we have observed it is that Mchenga is a dishonest, spineless wimp who lacks integrity.

We say this because Mchenga has consistently made strange decisions on important cases which a person of integrity could not have defended or even contemplated making.

We still remember that using or abusing the respect that his office is supposed to enjoy, Mchenga allowed himself to be used by George Kunda to lie to the nation about the case of Kashiwa Bulaya.

They told the nation that there was no strong case against Bulaya and it would be a waste of state resources to prosecute him. Mchenga even went further, as many of us know, to give Bulaya the benefit of a corrupt nolle prosequi which he personally tabled in court.

That case, as we all know, was later prosecuted by the Task Force on Corruption after concerted public pressure and Levy Mwanawasa ordering that it be taken back to court. Bulaya was convicted. He appealed to the High Court and his conviction was upheld. Mchenga still has issues to answer about his behaviour in the Bulaya debacle.

Did he exercise his power independently or did he allow politicians to use his office to rubberstamp their decisions? Our answer to this question is that Mchenga had allowed the politicians to take out the case of Bulaya from the courts and to take it back to the courts when the politics around it became too hot.

It was not Mchenga’s decision to take that matter out of court and to take it back. George Kunda took that matter out of court and Levy took it back to court. Mchenga was simply a dishonourable conduit in this whole matter.

Bulaya’s case is not the only case where Mchenga has disgraced his office. A few days ago, another potential beneficiary of his lack of integrity was unfortunately convicted by the High Court, notwithstanding Mchenga’s wishes.

Mchenga’s office went to court and tried to secure the freedom of Anuj Rathi by condemning the work of the Task Force on Corruption. Instead of Rathi’s lawyers defending their client, the Director of Public Prosecution’s office took over and started defending a criminal.

Shamelessly, Mchenga’s office was arguing that Rathi was not guilty when they knew that Rathi’s co-conspirator retired Lt Gen Wilford Funjika had already been convicted, sentenced and served jail time for receiving bribes from Rathi.

Why was Mchenga ready to embarrass his office by the senseless defence of Rathi? There can be only one explanation: Rathi was a dear friend of Mchenga’s political masters who needed to be protected. Today, Mchenga’s reputation has been torn into further shreds because of his lack of integrity.

A man of integrity would not do with the office of Director of Public Prosecutions what Mchenga is doing with it.

In the matter of Chiluba that Musa is referring to, Mchenga again told lies to the nation. He claimed that he had not given permission to anyone to appeal against Chiluba’s acquittal when he knew very well that such express permission from him was not needed.

We say this because Mchenga had a judgment in his office from judge Mervin Mwanamwambwa which said that once he had given the initial authority to prosecute, there was no need for further authority to appeal. Again we ask: was Mchenga’s statement that he needed to give authority a product of incompetence or was it a question of willful dishonesty and lack of integrity?

Anyway, it is clear that Mchenga has a lot to answer for in the way that he has run his office which he has disgraced completely by seeming prepared to tell lies for the benefit of his political masters. This spineless wimp simply has no integrity and must go.

Labels: CHALWE MCHENGA, DPP, MUSA MWENYE

posted by MrK @ 2:26 PM