YOU’LL BE JAILED!
Saboi warns judges and magistrates doing dirty work for UPND
- We shall not end at firing them but also investigate them and make them account for their misconduct
- Most of these judges and magistrates will go to jail like the Ugandan judge
- Don’t cry that it is political persecution.
By George Zulu
THE time is coming when those judges, magistrates and other judicial officers doing dirty work for the ruling party will be made to account for their conduct while in office, Saboi Imboela has warned.
Imboela, president of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), said in an interview with The Mast yesterday most of the judges and magistrates handling politically motivated cases especially against the opposition and government critics would be made to account for their conduct after the 2026 general election.
She was commenting on the imprisonment of a United Nations (UN) and Uganda High Court judge, Lydia Mugambe, for abuse of authority of office.
Imboela said most of the judges and magistrates in Zambia who were knowingly participating in the destruction of the country’s democracy would go to prison after the next government takes over next year because of their partisan conduct and abuse of power.
“There is a case in point in Zambia over David Simusamba who was used by the PF [Patriotic Front] to persecute others. Where is he now? He was fired. But we shall not end at firing but investigate and make them account for their conduct. Most of these judges and magistrates will go to jail,” she said.
There has been a public outcry over the manner in which the Zambian Judiciary has been aiding the persecution of opposition leaders and suppressing citizens’ freedoms using the law since the United Party for National Development (UPND) took over government in 2021.
Imboela warned that the ‘political’ judges, magistrates and judicial officers should not hide behind immunity because they would be made to account for their transgressions while in office after the change of government.
“This is a timely warning to those [judges, magistrates and judicial officers] playing and singing the UPND song. Those found to be doing dirty work for the UPND must know that one day they will be made to account for their conduct. Don’t cry that it is political persecution [when you are jailed]. We need to sanitise the Judiciary; the Judiciary is dirty. Things are not okay in this country and when you have a government that abuses freedoms and rights of the people at will, then you are in problems,” she said.
“But when you have some Judiciary officers that decide to go to bed with politicians, then you are in serious trouble. Then you have a Judiciary that cannot defend and protect the Constitution. This is what we are seeing in this country today.”
Imboela urged judges, magistrates and other judicial officers to defend the rights of the people, which was their constitutional mandate, instead of doing dirty work for the ruling party.
“I am sure they [Zambian judges, magistrates and other judicial officers] have also read that story on BBC over the UN judge who was jailed for abusing her maid. The court looked at the matter critically. And one funny thing is that this Lydia Mugambe, 50, was a high court judge in Uganda. The lesson is deep for our judges here, that nobody is above the law,” Imboela said.
According to the BBC, Mugambe, who forced a young woman to work as a slave while she studied for a PhD in law at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, had been jailed for more than six years after being found guilty of abuse of authority.
She was found to have taken ‘advantage of her status’ over the Ugandan woman in the ‘most egregious way’ and turned her into a modern-day slave.
