Acting Chief Justice Lombe Chibesakunda says inadequate court infrastructure in the country still remains a challenge for judiciary staff to dispense their duties diligently.
Justice Chibesakunda has further attributed the lack of sufficient court rooms, inadequate magistrates’ chambers and limited office space for support staff as contributing factors to delays in the dispensation of justice.
She said this factor was a major contributor to delays in the disposal of cases country-wide.
Justice Chibesakunda however said that government was committed to see to it that infrastructure development is secured in the sector to provide efficient and effective administration of justice.
Justice Chibesakunda was speaking during the commissioning of a new subordinate court complex in Kalomo recently whose construction gobbled over K3,000.000.
The judiciary staff were previously housed at the buildings department storeroom which was improvised with makeshift facilities to suit a court set-up
Justice Chibesakunda however urged judiciary staff in Kalomo district to guard the new building jealously stressing that the beauty of the structure would be meaningless if there was no client satisfaction.
Instead of complaining to the public, why doesn’t she just talk to her relative with the mighty pen at State House? So what has happened to the supposed massive infrastructure projects that PF have mortgaged the country for?
That yellowish house-like building on the road to Livingstone cost K3m to construct? Kwena bana Kalomo balabba mali! And is it even that beautiful for the CJ to be referring to it as such? Why not build proper court buildings, rather than church-like, house-like structures we are celebrating about? I now agree that we are backwards!
Court space is a problem in the UK too. It’s about gov’ts not planning and budgeting for population growth needs in the future. It’s interesting we are building whereas here they are closing due to lack of funding to run the number of courts.
In the UK currently, county courts are trailing a new system, after court closures and amalgamating area county courts. You can no longer go to a court counter for case management information. You have to call the court operators and be given an appointment.
Zambian should not assume our gov’t is too far out. County courts are also small here and some larger ones like central court has a reputation of delays due to procedural errors.
It is good we build more courts, but gov’t should be cautious on future budgets for running these…