WHERE DOES THE LUSAKA HIGH COURT JUDGMENT LEAVE THE CONVENTION THAT ELECTED MAKEBI ZULU?

By Mwanza Isaac

WHERE DOES THE LUSAKA HIGH COURT JUDGMENT LEAVE THE CONVENTION THAT ELECTED MAKEBI ZULU?

The ongoing leadership dispute within the Patriotic Front (PF) has produced a complex trail of litigation across several courts. Yet when the various rulings are examined together, a striking legal reality emerges:

In trying to navigate the politics and the law, the court processes have reinforced the legitimacy of Miles Sampa as President of the Patriotic Front. One unavoidable legal question also emerges: where does the recent judgment of the Lusaka High Court leave the convention that purportedly elected Makebi Zulu?

At present, Robert Muchintha Chabinga and Morgan Ng’ona largely rely on an interim order obtained from the Court of Appeal of Zambia restraining Sampa from altering the list of PF office bearers. This interim relief has temporarily preserved their position in the party’s official records. However, it does not endorse Chabinga as legitimate leader of the PF.

To understand the legal posture of the dispute, it is necessary to revisit the sequence of events.

On 23 October 2023, Miles Sampa convened a Patriotic Front convention at which he was elected President. Following the convention, he appointed Morgan Ng’ona as Secretary General and Robert Chabinga as a member of the Central Committee.

This convention, however, was rejected by a faction aligned with the late former President Edgar Lungu, which included senior party figures such as Given Lubinda and others. The internal dispute soon spilled into the courts.

Subsequently, Ronald Chitotela and other 8 MPs challenged the leadership question before the Constitutional Court of Zambia. On 27 June 2024, the Court dismissed the matter for want of jurisdiction. The practical consequence of that decision was that the Court declined to interfere with the leadership arrangement that had emerged from the October 2023 convention, leaving Sampa in office.

Shortly thereafter, the internal conflict escalated. On 28 June 2024, Sampa dismissed Morgan Ng’ona from the position of Secretary General. Two days later, on 30 June 2024, he dissolved the Central Committee and removed Robert Chabinga and other members whom he had previously appointed.

In response, the dissolved Central Committee purported to expel Sampa from the party on 3 July 2024 and attempted to install Chabinga as President. Chabinga and Ng’ona subsequently requested the Registrar of Societies to remove Sampa from the official list of PF office bearers.

Litigation followed immediately.

Ng’ona challenged Sampa’s decision to dissolve the Central Committee and to dismiss him as Secretary General, while Sampa in turn challenged the purported expulsion effected by the dissolved Central Committee. Both matters were later dismissed by the Lusaka High Court.

Ng’ona also petitioned the Constitutional Court of Zambia seeking to have the Matero parliamentary seat held by Sampa declared vacant on the basis that he had allegedly been expelled from the PF. The Court declined to grant the relief sought. In doing so, it noted that the broader dispute surrounding the PF presidency was already before the courts and also recognised that Sampa had himself dissolved the Central Committee — a decision that Ng’ona had already challenged before the High Court.

Meanwhile, PF Members of Parliament separately challenged the legality of the convention that had elected Sampa as President. That matter proceeded to hearing before the Lusaka High Court, which ultimately upheld the validity of the convention.

It is this particular decision that has significant legal implications.

By validating the convention that elected Sampa, the High Court effectively confirmed the legal foundation upon which his presidency rests. The ruling does not merely resolve a procedural challenge; it affirms the legitimacy of the very process through which Sampa assumed the leadership of the PF.

At one point when Chabinga was attempting to join one matter in the High Court as PF President, the Court refused to grant Chabinga for lack of locus.

Seen against the backdrop of the other court decisions, including the Constitutional Court’s refusal to intervene and the High Court’s dismissal of challenges relating to the dissolution of the Central Committee, the cumulative effect is difficult to ignore. The courts have repeatedly declined to displace Sampa from the leadership position that emerged from the October 2023 convention.

There are, however, further unintended legal consequences arising from these rulings. One of them is that, as matters stand, no other faction within the PF could lawfully organise a convention to elect new leaders of the party. In principle, the authority to convene such a convention would rest with the recognised leadership of the party. If the courts have effectively validated the convention that elected Miles Sampa and have not displaced him from office, then the legal authority to convene a lawful convention would logically remain with him.

For now, the only remaining legal shield sustaining the competing claims of Chabinga and Ng’ona is the interim order of the Court of Appeal preventing changes to the list of office bearers. That order, however, is purely temporary and does not settle the underlying leadership dispute.

The recent judgment also has implications on the subsequent political developments within the party. For instance, the convention at which Makebi Zulu was reportedly elected under the leadership of Given Lubinda would face serious questions of legality within this framework. If only Miles Sampa is presently recognised as PF President in law, then any convention convened outside that authority may struggle to meet the threshold of legality.

This creates a difficult legal position for the convention that purportedly elected Makebi Zulu under the leadership of Given Lubinda. If the authority to convene a convention lies with the recognised party president, then a convention organised outside that authority may struggle to satisfy the requirements of legality within the party’s constitutional framework.

Again, Robert Chabinga and Morgan Ng’ona rely largely on an interim order obtained from the Court of Appeal of Zambia restraining Sampa from altering the list of PF office bearers. However, that order is temporary and does not determine the substantive leadership dispute.

When the Court of Appeal eventually hears the matter, it will be confronted with a legal landscape already shaped by several court decisions. Taken together, those decisions appear to have produced an unintended but consequential outcome: they have strengthened the legal standing of Miles Sampa’s presidency and, by implication, raised serious questions about the validity of any parallel convention held outside that authority.