BILL 7, NOW 74 BILLS SIGNALS WHAT COULD HAPPEN TO THE REST OF THE CONSTITUTION
A KBN TV EDITORIAL
The sad reality of what’s happening in the National Assembly today, calls for deep reflection. We must question the illegalities we are tolerating in broad day light camouflaged as democracy.
At first, citizens raised concerns with the manner in which Bill 7 became law. Against so much public uproar, the UPND administration was determined until the highly contested Bill 7 became law.
It has become now very clear that the UPND’s next card was to push 74 Bills before the National Assembly and force MPs under duress to consider those Bills before the House is dissolved in ten days.
With such limited amount of time, MPs don’t have sufficient space to interrogate and thoroughly scrutinize the proposed amendments.
As if the timing was not bad enough, tactfully, they allowed a number of PF and Independent MPs to cross the floor so that they can transact business in the House as defacto UPND MPs.
Yet, article 72 of our constitution says once you cross the floor, you cease to be a Member of Parliament.
Despite that instructive constitutional clarity, the UPND and Ms. Nelly Mutti have decided against what the constitution says.
Sadly, our laws are being desecrated on the very floor of the House that’s supposed to make them. One may wish to ask, what has happened to the conscious of our nation? Where is the morality in leadership that allows illegalities to become law?
The constitution has been breached and we have new laws being passed by illegal MPs. The question is who will enforce those illegalities?
Clearly, what’s happening to our nation is tragic. If MPs can not defend the very constitution they swore to protect, if MPs can not even respect the voters who sent them to the House as PF or Independent MPs, they grow wings and decide to defect without the blessings of the voters, we must begin to question if what we are witnessing is democracy or we are degenerating into a constitutional catastrophe.
Events surrounding Bill 7 and now 74 Bills only goes to amplify the whispers that are now becoming louder that if the UPND returned power after the August 13 elections, the audacity and arrogance they have exhibited to force constitutional amendments against public outcry, could signal a bigger desire for a major constitutional overhaul.
Already, Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha is on record as having stated that after the August 13 elections, the UPND will amend the constitution.
With such preemptive pronouncements, one can not rule out those who are expressing concerns that Zambia might be headed back to UNIP days of a One Party State.