Bill 7 Was Stillborn: Why Zambians Must Reject the New Amendments to the Constitution – Thandiwe Ketiš Ngoma

Bill 7 Was Stillborn: Why Zambians Must Reject the New Amendments to the Constitution

By Thandiwe Ketiš Ngoma

I am fully in support of the Oasis Forum, which has maintained its principled and unwavering position that the newly assented Constitution Bill No. 7 remains unconstitutional, as it was conceived and processed through procedures that violated constitutional requirements. The Forum has correctly pointed out that the process disregarded binding Constitutional Court guidance and failed the test of meaningful public participation. This position is not driven by politics or emotion but by fidelity to constitutionalism, the rule of law, and democratic governance.

History teaches us that unjust laws do not collapse on their own. They are dismantled when people refuse to normalize them, refuse to be silenced by fear, and refuse to surrender their rights for the comfort of obedience. South Africa’s apartheid system stands as one of the clearest and most instructive examples of this truth.

Apartheid: How It Came Into Being and Why It Was Rejected

Apartheid did not arise accidentally. It was deliberately institutionalized in 1948 when South Africa’s National Party came into power and formalized racial segregation into law. Through statutes such as the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act, the Pass Laws, and the Bantu Education Act, Black South Africans were stripped of political rights, forcibly removed from their land, denied quality education, restricted in movement, and reduced to cheap labor in their own country.

Crucially, apartheid was legal. It was passed by Parliament, enforced by courts, and protected by state machinery. Yet its legality never translated into legitimacy. It violated human dignity, equality, justice, and freedom, which are the very foundations of a just society.
Black South Africans rejected apartheid because it dehumanized them, excluded them from governance, and entrenched inequality as state policy.

They resisted relentlessly through protests, boycotts, strikes, international advocacy, and civil disobedience. They were told to obey the law. They were told to be patient. They were told change would come in time. But they understood a timeless truth: injustice legalized is still injustice. Eventually, the world was forced to admit what the oppressed had always known. Apartheid was wrong, illegal in spirit, and unsustainable. It collapsed because the people refused to accept it.

Bill 7 and Zambia’s Constitutional Crossroads

Today, Zambia finds itself at a constitutional crossroads.

Constitution Bill No. 7 has been assented to law by President Hakainde Hichilema despite widespread public opposition and serious concerns about the constitutionality of its process. This is not a trivial disagreement. At the heart of this matter lies a fundamental democratic principle: the Constitution belongs to the people, not the government of the day.

Zambians have rejected Bill 7 for substantive and legitimate reasons. First, the process itself was constitutionally flawed, failing to comply with Constitutional Court guidance and falling short of the requirement for meaningful public participation. Second, the expansion of Parliament and the increase in the number of Members of Parliament without transparent and credible delimitation raise fears of entrenching executive dominance rather than strengthening representation and accountability. Third, the increased nomination powers and the sequencing of implementation create fertile ground for abuse, patronage, and political control rather than democratic balance.

These are not abstract legal debates. They go to the heart of democratic governance, checks and balances, and the people’s sovereign authority. Zambians must not be hoodwinked into accepting a law whose birth process was unconstitutional. The principle is simple and timeless.

An illegal process cannot give birth to a legal outcome.

No amount of presidential assent can cleanse a process that violated constitutional safeguards, ignored public consensus, or sidelined due procedure. Just as apartheid’s legality did not make it just, Bill 7’s assent does not make it legitimate in the eyes of constitutional democracy.
South Africans were told to be patient. They were told to obey the law. They were told change would come in time. But time alone never dismantles injustice. People do.

Likewise, Zambians are now being encouraged to move on and accept Bill 7 as settled law. But constitutional violations are not erased by silence, and democracy is not preserved by submission. If citizens surrender their right to question unconstitutional processes today, they weaken their ability to resist greater abuses tomorrow.

Rejecting Bill 7 does not mean rejecting peace. It does not mean rejecting leadership. It means rejecting the normalization of unconstitutional governance. It means standing firm on the rule of law, transparency, accountability, and popular sovereignty.

The Tragedy of Legal Justification

Perhaps the most heartbreaking dimension of this moment is the role some members of the legal profession are choosing to play.
Some lawyers are busy crafting justifications, urging the public to accept Bill 7 on the grounds that the law has been passed and must therefore be respected. They remind citizens that, as lawyers, they swore to uphold and protect the Constitution of the Republic of Zambia and that the rule of law does not bend to emotions, political alignment, or popular sentiment. They argue that laws must be obeyed even when outcomes do not align with personal preferences.

But this is precisely where the tragedy lies.

The oath to uphold the Constitution is not an oath to defend every outcome, no matter how it is achieved. It is an oath to defend constitutionalism itself, the process, the safeguards, and the supremacy of the Constitution over expediency. When lawyers defend a law whose process is constitutionally questionable by demanding obedience instead of scrutiny, they reduce the rule of law to mere compliance.
That is not fidelity to the Constitution. It is a betrayal of its spirit.

How heartless and painful it is to watch those entrusted as guardians of the Constitution choose technical convenience over moral and constitutional courage. Lawyers should be the first to ask hard questions, not the first to silence them. Their duty is not to political comfort or institutional loyalty but to the Constitution and the people from whom it derives its authority.

A Call to Constitutional Courage

True patriotism is not blind loyalty to authority. It is loyalty to the Constitution and to future generations.

South Africans rejected apartheid not because it was easy but because it was necessary. Zambians too must rise to the responsibility of defending constitutionalism, not with violence, not with hatred, but with courage, clarity, and collective resolve.

Let history record that when the Constitution was threatened, the people did not stay silent.
Because laws that are forced on the people, against the people’s will, and through unconstitutional means, no matter how powerfully signed, will always remain illegitimate in the court of history.