By Nelson Zulu
LOSING Kwacha Constituency Member of Parliament Joseph Malanji says he will back to parliament and continue serving the people in the constituency after he wins the by-election yet to be announced.
Malanji whose seat was nullified by the High Court on the basis that he did not have a Grade 12 Certificate and the same ruling upheld by the Constitutional Court, Wednesday, said it was unfortunate that he got such a ruling from the Constitutional Court.
“The whole accusation is just speculation, I want to congratulate judge Mungeni Mulenga for upholding the rule of law, it is very unfortunate that we can get such a ruling from the ConCourt because even when I was going to file in my nomination, I had all the necessary documents, I had my Grade 12 (certificate), I had all the documents required by the Commission (ECZ), so it is very unfortunate that we can get a ruling of this nature from the ConCourt, but one thing I can assure you is that we shall go back to the constituency and win the seat back,” he said during a special programme on Muvi television.
Malanji said the ruling was an attack on the democracy of the country, saying the same court has made two different rulings on a similar matter citing the Nyirenda case.
The former foreign affairs minister insisted that he had all the necessary documents which he presented before the commission, adding that even the investigations conducted by the police last year vindicated him to that effect.
“I am commending judge Mulenga for upholding the rule of law and upholding the constitution because when you look at the process, the same Court… this is an attack on our democracy, I have all the necessary documents for me to contest as member of parliament. There is little we can do, we respect their ruling but one thing I can assure you is that we shall be back in parliament, people of Kwacha feel injured, this ruling has actually injured people of Kwacha,” said Malani.
Malanji noted that the Court came to do the ruling with a preconceived mind.
“…you can tell how much (many times) this matter was adjourned, we were supposed to have this ruling in May, it was adjourned four times, there is a provision in article 25 where we had to submit the certificate in question and the court rejected our submission, like I said in the matter of Nyirenda, the Court subpoenaed the Examinations Council of Zambia to ascertain the document. So you can tell that the court was not acting independently, the autonomy of the is slowly eroding and you can see where we are heading it is very clear,” he said.
He said,” You can see that there is some pressure from somewhere, there is little we can do, the people on the ground know what to do. This ruling, you could see even when they were doing this ruling in their mind, they were praying to God that please forgive us for making a wrong ruling, you can actually see this matter was a straight forward matter and that is why it had to take a lot of time. The court was under pressure, from the powers that be, this is wasting tax payers’ money, I will go back to Kwacha and win the election, you see it is unfortunate that this time we don’t have people who want to serve people, we have people who are job seekers who think its life and death to be an MP. I am going back to kwacha and will win this by-election,” said Malanji.