Chief Justice Mumba Malila says the media is entitled to freely trend and report on public proceedings fairly in order to ensure fairness.
Dr Malila says the presence of interested observers, including the media, aims at keeping adjudicators, lawyers and court-room staff mindful of their responsibilities and actions to make them more accountable.
The Chief Justice, however stated that in an even the judiciary’s actions are unacceptable, the media is at liberty to offer factual and fair criticisms.
Dr Malila said this during an interactive media workshop held in Lusaka on Friday adding that constructive criticisms help the judiciary implement their objectives better.
“Criticism of the judiciary should be factual and fair. However, distractive criticism is discouraged,” he said.
Meanwhile, Justice Bubile Shonga said the media is obliged to protect the the judiciary through fair, credible and factual reporting.
The Zambian judiciary has failed us on many fronts. The CJ doesn’t need to look far for indicators. Just check the list of pending judgements in the Supreme Court, some are older than 20yrs! Check how many cases have been abandoned at the Industrial Relations Court because parties died before their cases were causelisted. This is before we even talk about the judgements. How did the term styopet judgement by styopet judges come into being? Yet our judiciary is too quick to defend itself. We live in fear of a judiciary whose integrity is fractured
You are talking trash.. to you people it’s difficult to know what you call constructive criticism.. once the truth comes out you call it an insult or defamation.
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Tell that to your stiff necked president who is very insecure and scared of pf members
KZ incarcerate?
What is that? Do you mean incarnate? Is this the product of free education? Clearly low quality free education. Ati incarcerate lol
Joseph nkole
Leeds, UK
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Auto edit? You mean auto correct? Yaba
Unfortunately Mr Chipenzi and individuals like him would like the Judiciary to mive at the same pace as the social media! Just because there is exectation generated by the massive excitement and hype on social media doesn’t mean the Courts should automatically conclude cases in the same direction and at the same pace as the expectations.