LAZ: Cadreism Is Taking Over Official Govt Duties
LAW Association of Zambia president Linda Kasonde says it is regrettable to see how political cadres are taking over what should be official government functions.
And Kasonde has stressed that the Association feels there should be no addition or subtraction of Articles to the amended Constitution but only “cleaning up of the language” in the national document.
Kasonde, who featured on Hot Seat programme on Hot FM radio yesterday, said the trend of cadreism needed to be urgently curtailed as it was dividing Zambia.
Her comment was in response to a caller, brother Morgan’s question.
“As the Law Association of Zambia, you stand to protect the citizens and to let the law prevail in this country. [But] does the name of a cadre exist in the law? Because each party that forms government, we have seen cadres demarcating land, taking over the markets, charging fees in the markets, blocking the council and beating opponents anyhow. These people (cadres) are being protected by the ruling party. Does that law exist in this country?”
asked Morgan.
Kasonde then responded: “Firstly, thank you to brother Morgan for his question, in terms of what the status of cadres is in our nation. I for one think it’s very unfortunate at how cadreism is taking over what should be official government functions in terms of maintaining order and also we’ve seen that our youth are being used in terms of perpetrating violence against people with opposing views on both sides, which is very unfortunate. It’s a trend that must be curtailed as soon as possible because it’s dividing our nation, destroying our youth. There must be more productive ways in which our youth can use their energies and certainly violence and intimidation is not one of them.”
On another caller, Justin, who asked whether or not there was any person who had powers to dissolve LAZ or any person the Association feared, Kasonde pointed out that LAZ could not easily be swayed.
“You know what? Having been through what LAZ has been through, I think nothing can scare us now. We’ve been tested and time and time again, we’ve come out stronger. So, we are not easily swayed,” she noted.
And when asked by the programme host if members of the Judicial Complaints Commission (JCC) were too junior to review judgments made by the courts of law, Kasonde defended the composition of the JCC.
“What I can say is that…What I do know for sure is that the composition of the Judicial Complaints Commission is made up of very senior lawyers. The chair is Professor Patrick Mvunga who, I think, has around 40 years practicing experience. There is also a former Supreme Court judge on that Commission [and] there is also Mrs Zaloumis, who is a very well known legal personality. All of them, I think, are well above 30 years at the bar and so, they are not junior at all! The contention is whether or not lawyers should deal with matters that relate to the judiciary. [But] certainly the lawyers who are on the Commission are not junior at all,”
she explained.
On whether or not LAZ supported amendments to the amended Constitution of 2016, before the 2021 general elections, Kasonde underscored that ambiguities which existed in the document needed to be addressed but without any general alterations.
“The Law Association of Zambia, when the Minister of Justice called for submissions on this issue, went away for a retreat and did a very thorough report which we submitted to the Ministry of Justice several months ago. What we said in that report is that we don’t subscribe to wholesale amendments but rather we need to make sure that the language used in the Constitution is cleaned up so that there is no confusion as to what it means. For example, this 14 days [in the] presidential petition; what does that mean?”
Kasonde said.
“The essence of constitutional amendments came from the people of Zambia and so you don’t want to interfere with what the people of Zambia wanted. You just want what they wanted to be in the document to be clearer for everyone to know. So, that’s our position and hopefully at some point we’ll be able to publish what we said in our report so that everybody can see. What we are advocating for is the cleaning up of the language – we don’t want anything to be added or removed from what the people wanted.”
Meanwhile, asked how best the national referendum could be conducted, she said the exercise ought to be done separately from a general election.
“LAZ is on record as saying that we thought that it was a bad idea to have the referendum alongside the general election because it would then be politicised. What we did support was the content because what we wanted was an enhanced Bill of Rights for the Zambian people and that’s still very much outstanding. So, we’ll support the referendum to bring that enhanced Bill of Rights outside a general election period, whenever that will be – so long as there is enough time to prepare for that referendum properly so that everybody is sensitised to the contents of what will be in the referendum,”
said Kasonde.
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