Africa-Press – Zambia. Renowned Lusaka lawyer John Sangwa SC has appealed to President Hakainde Hichilema to subject the filling in of the vacant position of Chief Justice to a competitive and transparent process before it is taken to Parliament for ratification.
In a letter written to President Hichilema dated 1st October 2021, and copied to the Law Association of Zambia( LAZ) and the Judicial Service Commission, Sangwa has proposed that the position of Chief Justice should be advertised and the Judicial Service Commission must interview such shortlisted candidates publicly.
Sangwa has also proposed that future appointments of Judges to Superior Courts must follow a similar rigorous, open and competitive process. He said following the death of Chief Justice, Madam Justice Ireen Mambilima, the President was required, with the recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission, to appoint someone to the office of the Chief Justice.
Sangwa has called upon President Hichilema to abandon the practice followed by his predecessors in the appointment the Chief Justice and judges to superior courts. He said the current process has been a sham as it lacked any semblance of transparency or fairness.
He said the process has resulted in Zambia having a judiciary that suffered eroded Independence and integrity and the process institutionalised “political nepotism” in the Judiciary.
He said the consequences of this process has been the emergence of a Judiciary that doesn’t command the respect of the people it is supposed to serve.
“Today, going to Court is like going to a Casino in that there is no consistency in decision-making. The outcome, in most cases, is a matter of chance.”
He said under these circumstances, the Independence of the Judiciary became a fiction. He said the judicial branch as an arm of government, was reduced from a co-equal with the Executive, to an apparent department under the Executive.
He also cautioned that while the President was obliged to respond to regional diversity in his appointments of persons to public office, the concept should not be used to justify the appointment of an unfit person to occupy the Office of the Chief Justice.
He said the person who should take up the position of Chief Justice should be someone with an active conscience, a keen mind committed to fairness and a person that will help implement the inevitable reform of the Judiciary.
He said such a person must be of unquestionable integrity, should have no record of abusing public trust. He said such a person must have demonstrable devotion to scholarship and a willingness to learn to understand better and to judge better. Attached is a copy of the full letter by Mr. Sangwa to President Hichilema.
