What was the significance of the MPs walking out of the Bill 10 parliamentary debate?
Yesterday, Minister of Justice Given Lubinda made a ministerial statement to the effect that Cabinet had rejected the most contentious clauses in Bill 10 in a bid to get more support for Bill 10.
Why do we feel that Cabinet’s proposed amendments are not sufficient?
By Honourable Lubinda’s own admission Bill 10 was presented to the National Assembly without any amendments, in other words nothing was changed in the Bill. Once the Bill is presented in its original form, the National Assembly is under no obligation to accept any proposed amendments to the Bill, whether the amendments are proposed by Cabinet or the Parliamentary Select Committee. That means that there is a danger that the whole of Bill 10 can be passed into law without any amendments.
Even assuming that all of Cabinet’s proposed changes were adopted, there are several of the provisions that Cabinet has accepted that are a real danger to the rule of law and democracy in Zambia. We urge you to read the joint CSO statement that we issued yesterday that explains this in full.
What is the purpose of the walk out?
To pass Bill 10 at the Second Reading 2/3rds of the total number of MPs in the National Assembly need to vote for it. The walk out of the MPS has meant the PF haven’t met the 2/3rd threshold because more than one-third of the MPs walked out. The walk out has also exposed those who support the Bill as they remained in the Parliamentary Chamber.
We rely on the MPs that walked out to maintain their position so that Bill 10 is not passed into law.