EXPLAINER | How the Technical Committee Report Fits into Parliamentary Battle Over Bill No. 7
As national debate around the Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Bill No. 7 of 2025 intensifies, confusion has emerged over the role of the Technical Committee’s Report and whether it replaces the Bill now before Parliament. It does not. The Technical Committee’s work, chaired by Judge Mushaukwa, is advisory, not legislative. Its report has not been Gazetted, it is not a Bill, and it does not enter Parliament as a legal instrument capable of amending the Constitution. Instead, it serves as expert input into a process that remains firmly controlled by Parliament.
The only binding legal document before the House at this stage remains Bill No. 7 itself. It was formally Gazetted and reintroduced in the same form in which it previously stood, in line with parliamentary procedure. Once a Bill is deferred and later reintroduced, it does not restart its life cycle. It simply resumes at the next procedural stage. For Bill No. 7, that stage is scrutiny by a Parliamentary Select Committee. That is where Zambia now stands.
The Technical Committee’s role is to appear before this Select Committee as a witness. Its report, built from more than 11,800 public submissions, will be treated as evidence, just like submissions from churches, civil society, lawyers, opposition parties, academics and ordinary citizens. The Committee is not obligated to adopt the Technical Committee’s recommendations in full, in part, or at all. Parliament listens. Parliament weighs. Parliament decides.
This distinction matters because a dangerous narrative has taken root suggesting that the Technical Committee’s work has somehow nullified Bill No. 7 or replaced it with a new framework. That is legally false. Any amendments that will eventually be made, if at all, will be made directly to Bill No. 7 itself when the House enters the Committee of the Whole later in the process.
The most decisive document in this entire cycle will not be the Technical Committee’s Report. It will be the Select Committee Report. That is the document that will be formally tabled before the full House. It will capture who said what. It will recommend which clauses should stand, fall, or be altered. It will shape the debate at Second Reading. And it will heavily influence how Members of Parliament vote when the Constitution itself is finally put on the line.
This is also why public attention must remain fixed on both documents at the same time. Bill No. 7 tells citizens what Government originally proposed to change in the Constitution. The Select Committee Report will reveal how much resistance, support, or refinement those proposals encountered from the public and experts. One shows intent. The other shows contestation.
Once Select Committee hearings close, the Committee will retreat to analyse evidence clause by clause. Its report will then be laid before the House ahead of the Second Reading, where the principles of the Bill will be debated and subjected to a two thirds constitutional vote threshold. If it survives that stage, the House will then descend into technical clause by clause surgery before the final Third Reading vote and possible presidential assent.
Legally, this is where the authority lies. The Constitution does not vest amendment power in technical experts, advisory committees, civil society or political coalitions. That power sits only with Parliament, acting through publication, scrutiny, debate and constitutional voting thresholds.
What Zambia is witnessing now is not chaos. It is an evidence driven phase of a constitutional amendment process that is often loud, contested and politically charged, but still governed by strict procedural law. The Technical Committee provides knowledge. The Select Committee filters that knowledge. The House owns the final verdict.
As this process unfolds, citizens are not spectators. They are constitutional stakeholders. Reading the Bill. Reading the reports. Tracking the votes. Demanding clarity. That is how constitutional authority is defended, not through slogans, but through informed pressure.
(c) The People’s Brief | Ollus R. Ndomu
The Technical Committee Report is just Trash, and not worth the paper it is written on..It’s an Ungazetted Trash which hasn’t even tabled in Cabinet.
The MILLIONS gobbled for the fake consultative exercise are just a waste of public resources.
An ungazetted report from the Technical Committee has no official legal standing on Bill 7 in the formal legislative process.
It’s role is primarily advisory and political with it’s contents being used to inform debate and public opinion…in informal settings like when drinking Chibuku or Kachasu.
In short it’s just noise, and ofcourse empty political noise for propaganda purposes, like what Jack Mwiimbu is doing.
An ungazetted report is essentially an informal document in the eyes of the law. A document only becomes legally binding or officially recognized in the legislative process once it is formally gazetted . The Government has however failed to Gazette the Technical Committee Report.. neither has it been presented to Cabinet. All we see now is that it has found itself with the Select committee in our National Assembly looking at the Clauses of the Illegitimate and Unconstitutional Bill 7.
This lack of formal gazzetting adds on to the procedural illegalities surrounding the illegitimate and Unconstitutional Bill 7.
Because of its ungazetted nature, it lacks the formal legal authority to influence changes to Bill 7..The Select committee is not obliged to take any thing from this report.
It’s also important to note that the Technical Committee Report cannot absorb or legally validate the procedural illegalities surrounding the illegitimate and unconstitutional Bill 7.
The constitutional Court declared the original process of the Bill’s initiation unconstitutional due to a lack of a broad based public consultation and an INDEPENDENT BODY leading to the process.
The Procedural illegalities once declared by a court , remain in force , and a technical report sneaked into Parliament at committee stage is not a legal fix to the initial unconstitutional process.
The illegitimate and unconstitutional Bill 7 therefore remains so, Illegitimate and Unconstitutional, until the Constitutional Court vacates it’s earlier ruling. The misadventures in our National Assembly by the Parliamentary Select committee cannot change the status quo.
That’s my humble understanding.