ATTORNEY General, Mumba Malila has said his office has made tremendous progress towards the preparations for the sitting of a tribunal to probe the alleged professional misconduct of the three suspended judges expected to start sittings next week.
Mr Malila said in an interview yesterday that all was going on well and his office was expected to finalize its submission requirements for the tribunal this week in readiness for next week’s sitting.
The tribunal which is headed by Malawi High Court Judge, Lovemore Chikopa is expected to hear alleged professional misconduct of Supreme court Judge Philip Musonda and High Court Judges, Nigel Mutuna and Charles Kajimanga.
Acting Chief Justice Lombe Chibesakunda on May 9, 2013 delivered a majority judgment to the effect that President Michael Sata was within his powers to suspend the judges and subsequently appoint a tribunal to probe them.
Ms Justice Chibesakunda had however due to the nature of the case advised not to go ahead with the tribunal, the advice, Mr Malila said was unsolicited as the judgment in itself was clear that the president was on firm ground to call for the probing of the judges.
Mr Malila yesterday said preparations of the tribunal were going on well but all what remained was for filing of necessary documents which were requested by the tribunal secretariat.
Mr Malila said that his office was still conducting preliminary issues as it has to meet rules tabulated by the tribunal before it could start sitting.
He said that the tribunal has requested for the submission of statements of allegation, list of witnesses, witness statements and other documents which his office was expected to submit this week “ We are still in doing the preliminary issues because only last week, we were requested to submit a list of witnesses and statement of our arguments to the tribunal which we will be working on this week and because of that, we have requested for more time before the tribunal can start sitting” Mr Malila said.
Mr Malila said that everything was expected to be finalized this week before the tribunal could start its sitting next week.
Mr Sata had suspended the three judges over their conduct in a civil case involving the Development Bank of Zambia as complainant, and the Post Newspapers Limited, Mutembo Nchito and JNC Holdings Limited as defendants.
The judges took the matter to court but the final judgment by the Supreme Court said Mr Sata was within the law to appoint a tribunal and did not breach his Constitutional powers.
The tribunal would comprise of Judge Chikopa as chairperson and members Justices Thomas Ndhlovu and Naboth Mwanza, as well as Chipili Katunasa as secretary.
Let the judges dance to the tone, this is memmbe my friends he will make sure you dance and embaresed
MMEMBE has completely failed because he has ended up energising Zambians to hate him & his minions of criminals at Statehouse!
Sata & PF govt will be arrested by ZAMBIANS because the way he has been dispensing injustice as a result of his association with Mmembe & Nchinto a corrupt criminal complicity fraudster
ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THE SAME ZAMBIANS WHO HAVE BEEN VOTING FOR THE PF EVERY BY ELECTION OR YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT ANOTHER GROUP OF ZAMBIANS?
This is not free, the money being bribed to Chikopa & HIS BUNCH OF CRIMINALS MASQUERADING as judges, is coming from the $750 million Euro bond!
Sata is an insensitive animal who cannot think because of his sickness!
Some stu.pid tribunal set up to fix judges who were defending taxpayers money. Sata and your minions are shameless self serving pigs!
SOME PEOPLE FEAR M’MEMBE AND NCHITO TO THE EXTENT THAT AT THE MENTION OF THOSE NAMES THEY SHUDDER TO THE POINT OF PISSING IN THEIR PANTS.
People in Zambia are fools if they vote pf govt again….they will suffer. So let them continue suffering because they deserve this govt with no plan, no ideology, no direction, full of deceit…..I am not debating but an opinion. The country will retrogress the next 5 years and God forbid 10 yrs……