Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba has maintained that no organisation will be allowed to hold public hearings on the constitution making process without the supervision of the Technical Committee Drafting the Republican Constitution.
Mr. Kabimba said all parallel meetings over the constitution remain banned in order not to confuse the ongoing process of enacting a new constitution.
He said the decision to halt parallel process is also aimed at safeguarding the integrity of the constitution making process.
“This does not in any way stifle democracy. It is simply aimed at ensuring that the process of arriving at a people driven constitution is safeguarded,” Mr. Kabimba said.
The Justice Minister was speaking in Lusaka this morning during a civil society consultative meeting on the constitution organised by FODEP.
Mr. Kabimba clarified that NGO’s can still hold in house meeting to discuss the draft constitution but will not be allowed to hold public hearings to discuss the same.
Winter under sata can never gibe zambians a people driven constitution. If there is nothing to hide why stop parallel hearings?
But why do this Western NGO’s want parallel hearings? atase
a people driven constitution without the involvement of he people
How come? Do you mean the ones involved are dogs or pigs or rats???’
Ignore the id.iot ! One day Zambians will have a people driven constitution. It is just unfortunate that fate has dealt a terrible hand in so far as leadership of the country is concerned since independence to date. When history is written in a 150 years time our predecessors will learn that the first 60 years of Zambia’s existence as an independent nation was a wasted period as the leaders were not up to the task. Basically they have all been a bunch of *****s as attested by Kabimba’s stup.id stance over the constitution. No wonder the few intelligent people who saw through this scum just tore up the bloody rubbish! Let the Kabimba have his constitution but it will be shortlived!
No, the Minister has a point, the Technical Committee is organising district and provincial consultations and that is where people’s views are being gathered on the draft constitution. Now, if you have ten other organisations also holding the same consultations, that is total confusion, remember, people in rural areas will not distinguish a icvil society process from a formal Government process!!!!!!
Its called freedom of association you are allowed to choose who you want to listen to… peo
ple are not kids to be shown who to listen to…
in whose interest is this draft constitution anyway. please tell me how different it will be from the last one?is this the same constitution from the mwanawasa days, this process is day light robbery i thought someone promised new constitution in 90 days also? how do you rewrite the same constitution and say its new? thieving comedians.
Has Zambia got normal people?
No the only normal person is you. Zambia has no normal people.
I feel for Zambia when I see how gullible most bloggers are. quick to support government even when things do not make sense. not every of us understand the constitution issues at it is at such meetings that things can be made clearer. With new rule what we will be getting is a one-sided view which will make it easy for them to snick in clauses that favour them. I bet we they won’t even allow political parties to explain to their members