The judgment of the Constitutional Court declaring that Speaker of National Assembly Dr Patrick Matibini exceeded his powers when he interpreted the Constitution in order to ‘cure’ the lacuna that he identified in Article 72 of the Constitution as amended is embarrassing.
“We find that the Speaker exceeded his powers as the function of interpreting the law and the Constitution is vested in the judiciary as provided by Article 119 of the Constitution. The interpretation of the Constitution as a legal instrument is the function of the courts, the branch of government whom is assigned the delicate task,” ruled the Constitutional Court.
We say this is embarrassing because Dr Matibini is a High Court judge who should have known better what the law is.
Was this a genuine error or oversight on the part of Dr Matibini? We don’t think so. There’s a very disappointing pattern of Dr Matibini not being an impartial Speaker. He is always eager to protect or defend the interests of Edgar Lungu and the Patriotic Front.
This must be a great disappointment to the people who made Dr Matibini Speaker.
We know who made Dr Matibini Speaker in 2011 – who recommended him to Michael Sata for the position of Speaker. We also know why and how he was made Speaker.
Dr Matibini was chosen to be Speaker because he was believed by his sponsors to be a principled man who was committed to defending the rights of people and that which was right.
With the death of Sata this changed. Today Dr Matibini is not different from any other minion of Edgar. He is a promoter and defender of Edgar’s interests and not that of the people. He has hired himself out to Edgar and his political agenda. For what?
But Dr Matibini is no longer embarrassed by things like this. For him now is sebana wikute!
The principled Matibini we knew no longer lives in that body of his. What now dwells in that body is something else. Even Deputy Speaker Catherine Namugala, with her very modest education, has performed far better than Dr Matibini. Why? It’s simply because she has, in her own limited way, tried to do an honest and fair job.
Clearly, Dr Matibini has abandoned the pursuit of honest and fairness.
And what we are seeing in Dr Matibini’s decisions is what happens to people when honest and fair principles and values they were pursuing are abandoned.
Yes, today Dr Matibini is enjoying the privileges of being Speaker, including getting land in wrong places, but inside he is dead – he is a walking dead. The good Matibini we knew in him ‘died’ a long time ago. Will he recover from this? No!