EXTRA JUDICIAL PUNISHMENT BY THE POLICE, THE BREAKDOWN OF THE RULE OF LAW
The Lungu government is using the police rather than the courts of law to punish and imprison people.
The pattern is well established.
What they are doing is when they arrest someone from the opposition, they charge them with serious offences not backed by evidence and then deny them police bond so that they stay in jail for days and weeks.
The case of Chanda Kambwili being the most recent, they charged her with aggravated assault knowing full well that a charge of that nature would not be substantiated in court, but they used it to keep her in jail for two days and then dropped the charge.
The case of Patrick Mucheleka and others, where they charged them with aggravated robbery, a non bailable offence and kept them in prison for a couple of months before dropping the charge due to lack of evidence.
Hakainde Hichilema was charged with treason, spent 4 months in prison and then the charge was dropped due to insufficient evidence.
These are just 3 examples but there are many others who have been through this process.
Even Dr Kambwili was jailed for unlawful assembly but when the trial commenced the DPP entered a nolle prosequi.
These people have all served jail terms on cases that should never even have been there, cases manufactured to keep them in jail for days or weeks as political punishment.
These are extra Judicial punishments, punishments of citizens done illegally using the police through flimsy charges not supported by law or evidence.
The Law Association of Zambia is completely silent as they watch the police imprisoning people when this should be a preserve of the courts.
It’s now routine that when any opposition figure is arrested, they can’t obtain police bond unless they spend a minimum of two nights in police cells.
This is totally unacceptable, a breakdown of the rule of law, it must be condemned and it must come to an end. -NDC