Withdraw Bill 7, demands LAZ

Withdraw Bill 7, demands LAZ

By George Zulu

THE Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) has joined the long list of stakeholders demanding the withdrawal of the Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Bill N0. 7 of 2025.

LAZ president Lungusani Zulu said the bill containing proposals for constitutional amendments should be withdrawn by the United Party for National Development (UPND) government as it lacked stakeholders’ involvement and participation as required by the law.

Zulu said in a statement LAZ had carefully reviewed the proposed provisions for amendment as published in the Gazette of May 23, whose content appeared to be general information as it lacked details.

“In fact, the proposed bill appears to have been published in the Gazette merely for citizens’ ‘general information’ without any established pathway for meaningful participation prior to its submission to the National Assembly,” he said.

Zulu said LAZ noted with sadness that President Hakainde Hichilema’s administration did not disclose any critical information to the people on the process adopted to come up with the bill.

He reminded the UPND administration that the Constitution was not a party document but a people’s property and therefore needed their involvement.

“We note that government has not disclosed any information on the processes adopted in coming up with the content of the bill and changes thereto, nor is there information on which stakeholders made recommendations on the proposed content of the bill.  It is LAZ’s position that the Constitution is a people’s document and their involvement in its formulation is not subject to any exceptions,” he said.

Zulu urged the UPND to respect the Constitution as it was explicit about its fundamental principle in any effort to reforms that the provisions of Article 79 of the Constitution, which provides for procedures for making amendments to the Constitution, must never be used to sideline Zambians.

“…have an obligation to create a legally protected process which assures citizens’ meaningful participation in the reform of the supreme law of the land and protects the content. It is therefore LAZ’s position that the Constitution Amendment Bill No. 7 of 2025 lacks the much-needed broad-based stakeholder engagement and consensus to birth a legitimate and acceptable constitutional reform,” he said.

He said some of the proposed amendments had the potential to erode the democratic tenets the country was anchored on.

Zulu highlighted such proposals as Section 8 of the Bill which proposed to amend Article 72(8) of the Constitution, to enable vacancies in the office of Member of Parliament (MP) to be filled by political parties from which the MP was elected.

He said such a proposal was dangerous, especially with weak intra-party democracy within political parties.

“It not only deprives citizens of the right to choose leaders of their choice to represent them in Parliament, but can also result in abuse where democratically leaders of the people in National Assembly are wholesomely replaced, clandestinely and without elections, by timid and abiding members of the parties. This will result in the erosion of the accountability function reposed in the National Assembly, undermining checks and balances, to the prejudice of citizens,” he said.

Zulu further said the proposed amendments aimed at increasing the participation of women, youths and persons with disabilities were wholly inadequate and did not benefit from the views of stakeholders they were intended to serve.

“We also note that the proposed provisions increasing the number of elected Members of Parliament to 211 are based on the Electoral Reform Technical Committee Report, which remains shrouded in secrecy, despite having been a product of a public process.

We do not believe citizens can debate an increase of constituencies, while the location of the proposed constituencies is treated as a state secret. It is equally hard to understand why Government would want to prioritize and rush to expend the country’s meagre resources on an expanded National Assembly instead of prioritizing mechanisms for actualizing the decentralization policy, for resources to trickle down to the grassroots, especially that there is no empirical evidence that smaller constituencies are currently better off than bigger ones, nor that the presence of more MPs is the panacea for the much-needed economic development of the country,” Zulu said.

Zulu has since urged the UPND Government to listen to the voice of the Church, traditional authorities, civil society among other stakeholders, and withdraw the proposed Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 7 of 2025.

And LAZ has announced that would be convening a Public Forum to give members and the general citizenry a platform to air their views on the current proposed Constitutional reform process.