Saturday, April 20, 2024

State to appeal against High Court decision to award damages to Tujilijili manufacturers

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ATTORNEY General Mumba Malila
ATTORNEY General Mumba Malila

Attorney General Mumba Malila has said the State is in the process of appealing against the High Court’s decision to award damages to the manufacturers of the strong spirits known as ‘Tujilijili.’

Mr Malila confirmed in an interview yesterday that the State would appeal against Judge Dominic Sichinga’s judgment to award damages to the applicants as most of the said companies had no valid licences.

“As the State we are definitely going to appeal against the decision. We still have time since that judgment was passed by judge Dominic Sichinga and will ensure that we file within the stipulated time,” he said.

He said the State was still preparing documentation to be filed in the Supreme Court saying they still had time to file their notice of appeal as well as the grounds of appeal.

In his judgment judge Sichinga said the line Minister then Nkandu Luo failed to give the applicants an ear which led to loss of business forcing him to award them damages for loss of verifiable stock or equipment.

Judge Sichinga ordered the Government to pay the applicants damages for loss of verifiable stock or equipment which should be assessed by the High Court deputy registrar.

This was in a case in which SR Distillers Zambia Limited and 14 others had sought judicial review in the High Court and wanted the court to reverse the Government’s decision on the ban to manufacture and selling of tujilijili.

Judge Sichinga, however, upheld Government’s decision to ban the manufacturing and sale of the strong liquor sachets.

13 COMMENTS

  1. Just agree for the state LEADERSHIP instead of paying Cash to them DRINK their tujilijili. Iam sure ukwa , scot, gbm,kabimba, lubinda can dance well and have a frank talk

  2. Govt should not have acted like ZESCO that switches off power without prior notice to it’s clients. No matter how urgent the matter could have been, Govt should have given prior notice to the tujilijili distillers. I presume most of them were licensed the the city councils to carry out their business.

  3. What was stopped was the packaging of spirits in small sachets which could be sold without age-censorship by unlicensed vendors. The distillers can still continue to distill their spirits and use bottles like the Russian Vodka. instead of complaining about the stoppage they should look at the damage they have caused in the lives of youths and seek to redress the way to do business. Compensation of what, packaging? because the spririt can be drained from the unsold sachets and packed in bottles to be sold in bars, restaurants, clubs, and hotels.

  4. It was very clear from the onset that the manufacturers’ plight was not taken into account when the govt made their decision to ban the product in great haste as it can be seen by this statement ”In his judgment judge Sichinga said the line Minister then Nkandu Luo failed to give the applicants an ear which led to loss of business forcing him to award them damages for loss of verifiable stock or equipment”

    It was evident that tujilijili had detrimental effects but the govt messed up and needs to compensate the manufacturers.

    • Any similarity with the exotic timber traders? The tuntember FF government don’t understand Macro Economic decisions are not the same as tuntemba decisions. Most traders borrow capital to do these operations if Cabinet ministers act like diarrhea, they will keep costing the tax payer at the cost of health and education.

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