All offences must be bailable- Dickson Jere

To Bail Or Not Bail?
By Dickson Jere

The starting point is Article 18 of our Constitution. It provides that every person is innocent until proven guilty by the Court of competent jurisdiction. Therefore, bail exists to support this proposition.

Bail is meant to allow every accused person to attend Court whenever is wanted. It is also meant for someone to continue going about his business until a decision is made on whether is guilty or not guilty.

Therefore, bail is denied where evidence show that the accused person may not attend court, or flee the country or indeed temper with the evidence or victims. This is why bail conditions differ from one person to another. It all depends on the evidence presented before Court.

Look at the few points, which Parliament may have missed out when coming up with the long list of offences that have no bail.

1. On average, it takes about two years to dispose of a matter in Zambian Courts. Some even go beyond that period. Many reasons abound. We have very few adjudicators. We have limited Courtroom space and being shared by Judges and Magistrates. Some areas do not even have High Courts except in Provincial towns. Our record keeping system is still not update. So, backlog is huge in terms of disposal of cases in Zambia.
2. Our investigation system by the police is not yet sophisticated in many ways. Police lack basic equipment for certain types of crime. This has been highlighted by the Courts in a number of decided cases that I have even shared on this platform. The use of science such as DNA and fingerprints are still not that developed in Zambia. Crime scenes get destroyed even before proper forensic tests and analysis is conducted. We also need to train our officers in advanced technologies in term of CSI type of crime investigations. As a result, many people do get acquitted, which is very good. Justice does happen.
3. The biggest problem facing our correctional services in Zambia is overcrowded. This is worsened when we have a number of remandees. These are people who have not been convicted but still on trial. So they cannot be used for productive purposes as they are not convicts. They take up space in prison literally doing nothing. The state must feed them though. And mostly, they live in inhumane conditions. Some die while waiting for their cases to be heard.
4. We are potential victims of being accused. Sometimes, we can get implicated by virtue of being found in a wrong place. You can get implicated in crime by wrong identification. You can get implicated by association or indeed by sheer malice of the victims. We have seen these things. For example, someone can deliberately put a stolen cow in your yard and report you for stock theft – which is now not bailable. By the time your case is concluded and acquitted, you would have lost your “life” or even job or business.

Having looked at the above, I dare say all offences must be bailable. Whether to give bail or not should be left to the Court to determine the circumstances like they do with many cases. They look at whether the accused is of fixed abode.

Does he have sureties. Others are given cash bail. Or indeed stiffer ones such as making them to report at the nearest police station every week. These mechanisms are there for the Court to make sure the accused does not “jump bail”. I would add that only second offenders with a previous conviction of similar crime should be denied bail!