STOP THE ABUSE
…Investigating after arrest is pure malice – M’membe
By George Zulu
GOVERNMENT must stop arresting and charging people with offences when it is not ready to prosecute such cases, Socialist Party (SP) president Dr Fred M’membe has said.
In his write-up themed ‘Don’t try to swallow what you can’t chew’, Dr M’membe condemned as “malicious” the State’s relentless persecution of political opponents using the justice system after the August 13 general election.
He wondered why the State was arresting and charging citizens it was not yet ready to prosecute.
“Why arrest and charge citizens when you are not ready to prosecute them? Let me be absolutely clear: we are not saying that those who commit crimes should not face the law,” Dr M’membe said
He said individuals or groups that break the law should be arrested, charged and taken to court.
Dr M’membe said the arrest, charging and prosecution of any wrongdoer should be done in accordance with the law.
“If an individual breaks the law, let them be charged, arrested and tried. But that process must be accompanied by the professional competence, the institutional capability, and the integrity to prosecute them fairly in an open court, even if that prosecution ultimately fails,” he said.
What was happening under the United Party for National Development (UPND) regime was illegal, ridiculous and disturbing.
“Instead, what we are witnessing today under this regime is a grotesque and unbridled exhibition of incompetence that heavily borders on pure malice and a calculated abuse of the criminal justice system,” he said.
Dr M’membe urged those administering the justice system not to swallow what they cannot chew.
“I give you this piece of advice: do not try to swallow what you cannot chew. As president of the Socialist Party and as a lawyer, I am directly calling out the individuals who have turned our constitutional safeguards into a national embarrassment,” he said.
Dr M’membe urged the Inspector General of Police Graphel Musamba not to reduce the police service to an instrument of political intimidation.
He said the Zambia Police Service was compromised.
“You have reduced the Zambia Police Service into an unruly instrument of political intimidation. Under your command, professional policing has been replaced by a lazy, incompetent doctrine: arresting to investigate, instead of investigating to arrest,” Dr M’membe said.
“Your officers drag citizens to cells on sensational, unverified whims, only to spend weeks desperately fishing for evidence that does not exist. This is a severe admission of professional failure,” Dr M’membe said.
He said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had weaponised the law through malicious overcharging.
“By clearing half-baked, politically manufactured charges like treason and sedition out of thin air, you are actively bypassing the constitutional right to bail. This is not prosecution; it is persecution,” he said.
Dr M’membe said it was sad that the DPP was being used to fight political battles by persecuting those opposed to power.
“When you realise your office has bitten off more than it can chew, you cowardly run to the courts to drop charges through nolle prosequi. You are using this mechanism to escape judicial scrutiny for your own administrative ineptitude, leaving victims vindicated but deeply violated without any accountability,” he said.
Dr M’membe said President Hakainde Hichilema should realise whatever transgression of the law happened under his watch the buck stopped at him.
He said Hichilema could not distance himself from what was happening in the country.
“The buck stops with you. The Inspector General of Police and the DPP act in your name, under your executive authority and under your watch. You cannot distance yourself from the tyranny being unleashed by your appointees. By allowing your administration to use congested detention cells as tools for political containment, you are presiding over the systematic dismantling of Zambia’s democracy,” Dr M’membe said.
He said Zambians wanted to live in peace but peace could not exist in a vacuum of oppression.
“This sheer administrative ineptitude is poisoning public faith in our Judiciary. When the police and the State prosecution bring half-baked, malicious dockets before the courts, it forces magistrates and judges into a backlog of Executive-driven theatre. It drags the reputation of our courts through the mud, turning them into extensions of political malice rather than independent halls of justice,” Dr M’membe said.
He demanded an immediate end to what he described as an amateurish and malicious approach to law enforcement.
“If your administration cannot prove a crime, it has no legal or moral right to strip a citizen of their freedom. The Socialist Party will not sit idly by while the institutions of justice are reduced to a playground for State-sponsored malice. We will continue to lead this struggle for a Zambia that is truly peaceful, fair, just and humane,” Dr M’membe said.
