SAKWIBA SIKOTA SC ON THE STATE vs CHANGALA SIAME — THE IDLING TRIAL
Kabwata Police Station — Charge: Idling
“My Lord, my client is accused of a most dangerous activity. He was… standing.
Not stealing. Not shooting. Not rigging 13 August. He was standing still in the Republic of Zambia, minding his own balance.
The learned State says this is ‘idling.’ I have checked my Penal Code, my Lord. Idling is what my car does when I am stuck in Cairo Road traffic. Apparently, if a man does what a car does, he must spend 4 nights in Kabwata.
The offence attracts a small fine. My client has spent 96 hours in detention for a fine of K50. The maths alone is a crime. The taxi from Kitwe to Kabwata cost more than the fine. The State has spent thousands to secure fifty Kwacha. This is not prosecution, it is bad business.
My Lord, if standing still is idling, then I apply that this entire court is in contempt. We are all seated. We are not moving. We are idling with wigs.
If idling is a crime, let us arrest all the benches at InterCity Bus Terminus. They have been idle since 1972.
My client is a Kitwe businessman. He came to Lusaka to do business. The State says he was idle. I say he was doing business of standing — waiting for the Zambian economy to move.
I beg the court: fine him K50, give him a chair so he cannot idle standing, and let us go home. The AU is watching, the UN is writing, Amnesty is noting — all for a man who was guilty of not moving.
Zambia has finally achieved what physicists could not — we have criminalized Newton’s First Law: a body at rest will remain in Kabwata.”
*— Sakwiba Sikota SC, Counsel for the Idle*