🇿🇲 BRIEFING | Wife turns to High Court after Enock Tonga spends weeks in police custody
The wife of Third Liberation Movement leader Enock Tonga has asked the Lusaka High Court to intervene over her husband’s continued detention, more than three weeks after he was taken into custody following dramatic scenes at the presidential results centre during Zambia’s August election.
Peggy Sakala Tonga has applied for a writ of habeas corpus, naming the Attorney General as respondent and asking the court to examine the legal basis for keeping her husband in custody.
She says Tonga was apprehended on August 17 at Manda Hill Police Post for conduct likely to cause a breach of peace before being taken to Police Headquarters and later Kabwata Police Station.
According to her application, Tonga was formally arrested for sedition on August 21, but has not been brought before a court to answer the charge. His wife argues that the offence is bondable and says four sureties have already executed police bond on his behalf, raising questions over why he remains detained.
Tonga became one of the most visible figures during the disputed results process last month when he stood at the national results centre in Lusaka and disrupted proceedings as results were being announced.
Security personnel, including soldiers, intervened and physically removed him. He subsequently disappeared from public view before his detention became the subject of renewed attention.
Mrs Tonga now argues that keeping him in custody without taking him before a court is “unjustified, unlawful and unconstitutional.” A habeas corpus application does not determine whether Tonga is innocent or guilty of the sedition allegation. It requires the State to justify his detention before a court and allows the judiciary to determine whether his continued confinement is lawful.
The application brings judicial scrutiny to a detention which has lasted since August 17.
Whatever the allegation against Tonga, the question before the High Court is narrower and fundamental: on what lawful basis does the State continue to hold a man who has been charged, has sureties for police bond, but has not been brought before a court?
– The People’s Brief | Goran Handya