THE Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) has expressed deep concern at government’s preoccupation with the enactment of Bill 10 in its original form.
General secretary Fr Emmanuel Chikoya said the amended National Assembly Constitution (Amendment) Bill No. 10 of 2019 had a lot of unfair, ambiguous and undefined clauses.
He warned all stakeholders not to be abstracted by the recently gazetted and purportedly corrected Bill 10 with input from the select parliamentary committee.
“The right thing to do when you have a poisoned chalice is to either pour its contents, clean it up and refill it before people can drink from it. It is a well-known fact that when it comes to voting, the voice of reason is ignored because people want to be politically correct. We, therefore, call on all well-meaning Zambians not to be swayed by the recently circulated Bill 10 because it is still the original bad Bill that is destructive to our democracy,” he said in a statement. “It is our firm belief that if enacted into law the proposed Bill will have a retrogressive impact on our democracy. A good Constitution is a constitution that should not be imposed on the people by force and manipulation, but rather the people themselves must be involved in the formulation and promulgation of their Constitution. A Constitution is for the whole nation and not just for a few politicians.”
He said out of the 79 clauses contained in Bill 10, there were some retrogressive clauses that render the amendment bill defective.
Fr Chikoya said the proposed changes to the Constitution as contained in Bill 10 fell as they seem to have a narrow perspective, contrary to the expected national perspective.
“As CCZ we still stick to our position that it is very important to involve the people in the process of making and, or amending their constitution because a constitution should reflect their ideas, values, interests and aspirations. Unless the people embrace the constitution as their own brainchild, they may not respect and safeguard it,” Fr Chikoya said. “For the constitution to command their loyalty, respect, obedience and confidence, the people must identify themselves with it through involvement and a sense of attachment. A good and viable constitution should be generally understood and accepted by the people. The involvement of the people in constitution-making/amendment is, therefore, important in conferring legitimacy and acceptability to the constitution.”
Fr Chikoya said CCZ’s critical concerns regarding the ‘amendment’ Bill 10 include, among others, eligibility of presidential candidates.
“We sadly note that under Bill 10 this provision has been removed, and once enacted into law there will be no room for anyone to challenge the eligibility of presidential candidates,” he said.
On the coalition government, Fr Chikoya said it was not necessary.
“Our view is that the 50 plus one threshold as contained in the 2016 Constitution is more progressive because it ensures that a president is elected by the majority of the registered voters. In the long run, it restricts an elected president from spending most of his/her term of office establishing their hold on to power,” said Fr Chikoya. “The simple majority system is also a challenge because it does not specify what role the leader of the smaller party will play in the coalition government because we would have already a running mate who automatically becomes the vice-president.”