DP’s Lawyers Write AG To Prevail Over False ‘DP De-registration’ Stories

Party spokesperson Judith Kabemba said the stories are “old and stale news” that broke in February of 2019 and peddled by some “desperate individuals with the intent to destabilise the  DP and mislead the masses”.

She stated that party lawyers wrote to the Attorney General  requesting him to “tame” the PF government officials who issued the contemptuous article.

”Below is part of the letter from our lawyers Mwenye & Mwitwa Advocates to the the Attorney General; Re: Precious Ntambu (Suing as National Secretary for the Democratic Party) v The Attorney General-2018/HP/1113. We refer to the above captioned matter. on the 2nd of February 2019, Mr Nephas Chufuta a Public Relations Officer at the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a statement to the press and the public in general to the effect that the court of Appeal had issued a stay of execution that had reinstated the Registrar of Societies’ decision to cancel the Registration of our client, the Democratic Party. As your office is no doubt aware, this position is false and calculated to deliberately mislead and is therefore contemptuous of the proceedings currently before the courts of law,” Mwenye & Mwitwa Advocates stated.

Kabemba  disclosed that the correct position is that on September 6,  2018, the High Court squashed the Registrar’s decision that deregistered the Democratic Party in which the state  applied for a stay of execution of the judgement.

She adds that as a matter of fact, the court stated the following:

“Therefore with regard the order of Certiorari, as rightly submitted by Counsel for the Applicant this order cannot be stayed as doing so would be to reverse the said order. On that basis, I decline to grant the stay of execution as regards the order certiorari’.”

“The decision of the Registrar that was quashed remains quashed and there is nothing at law that prevents our client from continuing its normal day to day activities and operations. It is therefore misleading and contemptuous for your client to intimate that the order of the Registrar of Societies has been reinstated. This is therefore to demand that you prevail upon your client to desist from issuing similar misleading statements or interfering with the operations of our client, failure to which our client will have no option but commencing contempt proceedings and to seek other appropriate orders from the Court. We have every confidence that as the Chief Legal Advisor to the Government and the leader of the Zambian bar, you will prevail upon your client to desist from similar conduct in future,” stated Mwenye & Mwitwa Advocates.