Justice Florence Lenganga has expressed concern over deplorable conditions in which inmates are living in the country. She said that there is an urgent need to improve prison conditions country-wide.
Justice Lenganga expressed her concern during the ceremonial opening of criminal sessions for Eastern Province at Chipata High Court yesterday
“This address would be incomplete if I fail to mention the deteriorating conditions of our prisons, both in terms of infrastructure in most provinces, the quality of food, lack of beddings, and in some cases non-availability of water, such that sometimes inmates have to walk long distances to fetch water and not forgetting the congestion of most of the prisons,” she said.
She also noted that the Directorate of Public Prosecutions and Legal Aid Board had serious manpower problems. She revealed that there was only one legal aid counsel servicing the Eastern jurisdiction.
She said as a consequence of the manpower crisis, even home sessions which normally take four weeks have been affected, adding that sometimes the advocates handling these sessions and the session justice come from outside the station and were under immense pressure.
“Turning to the judiciary there has been a serious shortage of manpower in terms of judges and magistrates in all the provinces and some stations only have one judge or magistrate,” She said.
Justice Lengalenga also revealed that the police and the prison services have not played their roles effectively and efficiently in the criminal justice system because of lack of transport. She said if remandees and witnesses could not be brought to court because of lack of transport, it became exceedingly difficult for the court to discharge its functions and dispose of the cases quickly which in the end brought congestion in prisons.
And Eastern Province Minister, Isaac Banda, said government was putting in place measures to decongest and make prisons more habitable.
Mr Banda said that government was putting up measures to improve prisons infrastructure and create more accommodation.
“Government is aware that due to population increase which has consequently given rise to the crime rate and other related social economic vices, the prisons infrastructure today accommodates more or less double the number they were initially designed for,” he added.
He said government was also aware that just like at the prisons, the current court infrastructures do not have holding cells that separate juvenile offenders from adult prisoners.
Mr Banda noted that government, through the Prisons Service, had also introduced the parole facility which begins this year.He said names of the inmates who were to go on parole have already been submitted to the parole board for further action.
“This is a facility where inmates who have served three quarters of their sentence will be released to join their families and they will be monitored from time to time,” Mr Banda said.
He said government was also working hard to ensure that adequate transport was given to the Prisons Service.
Meanwhile, Eastern Regional Commanding Officer for Zambia Prison service, Sainani Manda, said there were 1,445 inmates in the province.
Mr Manda also complained of transport problems in prisons.
ZANIS
From the East??? No problems it will be sorted out soon!