Courts compromised, can’t give neutral judgments – UPND

Supreme court

UPND secretary general Stephen Katuka has accused the PF of conniving with the courts to disadvantage the UPND.

Katuka said the courts were failing to give independent judgments because they had become compromised.

“From the time the PF came into government, first they petitioned about 65 parliamentary seats, all those they did not win, they petitioned in 2011, now the trend is growing. You can imagine where somebody gets 83,000 and their members gets 2000 votes and you petition; it doesn’t make sense to me and for the first time so many council seats have been petitioned, which is very bad,” he said.

“There is a serious breakdown in the rule of law in Zambia and secondly there is collusion between institutions of governance, which have collapsed because even those that are supposed to provide checks and balances on other institutions are all compromised. You cannot walk to the court of law for solace and expect fair justice, wherever you go, the courts are compromised and it is very unfair for our country; the courts are failing to give independent judgments. It is very dangerous for our country because we all rush to the courts when you are aggrieved for fair judgment but this is not happening today.”

He said the continued nullification of UPND council seats by the courts was enough proof that the PF wants to weaken the opposition in the country.

“This has now become a matter of concern. For the first time in the history of this country, we have so many tribunals all over the country where councillors have been petitioned and I don’t think we remember from independence any time where councillors were being petitioned as they have been petitioned today,” Katuka said. “Their whole idea is to try and weaken the UPND, especially in our strongholds. Our members of parliament have been petitioned even in areas they know they [PF] can never win even if we called for an election tomorrow.”
He said the PF was on a hunting spree for the opposition.

“For the PF, they are on a hunting spree, whatever they get out of this, it will add value to their lives, which is not supposed to be the case,” Katuka said.

He further accused lawyers and judges of conniving with the PF because they had become lovers of money.

“There is too much love of money and this is what has compromised our country, people are more interested in money than saving mankind. This is the challenge we have,” said Katuka.

“And when people love money so much, they can even kill for money, this is what we are seeing in our country today.”

A number of UPND local government seats, including in Itezhi Tezhi where a petitioner died after lodging the petition, have been nullified.