The Human Rights Commission-HRC, an independent commission of the Zambian government has finally spoken out and condemned the continued prolonged detention of suspects without trial, a practice that successive governments in Zambia have used at the expense of upholding the suspects rights of innocence until proven guilty.
Two prominent cases were the former ruling party and now main opposition Patriotic Front – PF Deputy Secretary General Mumbi Phiri and Patriots for Economic Progress – PEP President Sean Tembo have been held beyond expected and reasonable timelines of 48hrs continue to attract local and international human rights groups attention.
Just last week, opposition PEP leader Sean Tembo was detained by Zambia Police and spent six (6) days at Woodlands police station before he was availed a police bond. Mumbi Phiri, a woman politician remains detained for over half a year (8 months) without being presented to court. The Chief Justice Mumba Malila when asked is reported to have not yet briefed or received her file.
HRC has since reiterated the need for the country to timely institute justice system reforms and retire archaic laws. The human rights body has stated that the prolonged detention of suspects steps on their right of innocence until proven or entering pleas of guilty by the competent courts.
Mwelwa Muleya, HRC spokeperson said the courts of law should be able to make their own independent decisions at their own legally guided discretion based on the merits of each case so as to be able to grant bail.
In an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Muleya said by refusing to grant bail, the rights of the suspects are violated. And where there is a law that bans any possibility of bill, that law violates the right to presumption of innocence as provided by the constitution which guarantees the rights to every suspect to be presumed innocent until proven or pleaded guilty.
“In the event that someone cannot be granted bail or bond, it pre-supposes that they are guilty and results into prolonged pre-trail detention of suspects, which in itself propagates the chain of human rights violations [in the event that they are later proven innocent], so we need to resolve those”
HRC further advised Zambians to avoid looking at individual cases of people, but instead be able to look at a broader picture and the root cause of such problems. There are people who are not visible but have been detained longer than the visible people that are being talked about.
Muleya told ZBT that there also slow movements of dockets between the law enforces [police] and National Prosecution Authority – NPA, hence the need to make the system efficient enough so as to ensure that police don’t arrest people when they have not completed investigations.
The HRC spokeperson further said when someone is detained or arrested, it should take reasonable time in taking the matter to the courts of law and not prolonged timelines. The new Chief Justice has pledged to introduce reforms to make the Justice System efficient but no definite timelines or action plans have been made public.
Effort by ZBT to get a full list of people that are currently detained by Police for over 48 hours (2 days) before being presented to court, or not availed police bond option or without trial could not be obtained by press time as records are said to be manual with no computerized system in place. Sources say this is one area that need urgent attention if Zambia is to realistically entrench its democratic credentials.
