07/05/2025
From Liso to Chilangwa: The Forgotten Wisdom of Finality in Zambia’s Constitutional Justice
By Dr. Mwelwa
Tracing the legal journey from principled jurisprudence to political expediency.
In the troubled echo chamber of Zambian democracy, where law and politics often tango to the tune of expediency, a dangerous precedent is hardening into practice: Members of Parliament are being unseated not by the will of the people, nor by the final say of the apex court, but by the hurried hand of lower courts whose judgments are yet to endure the furnace of appellate scrutiny. We now live in a Republic where a single gavel stroke in a magistrate’s court—a court prone to influence, vulnerable to error, and always subject to appeal—can end a parliamentary mandate earned through the blood, sweat, and ballot of democratic competition.
Honourable Chitotela. Honourable Chilangwa. Honourable Munir Zulu. All have, within recent months, been pushed out of Parliament not through a loss of popularity or violation of ethical standards proven beyond doubt, but through mere convictions by courts of first instance. In each of these cases, the presumption of innocence—a constitutional jewel polished in the hands of centuries of legal tradition—has been trampled under the boots of institutional haste.
It is not merely the legal implications that are haunting; it is the political psychology such actions breed. For any aspiring politician in today’s Zambia, especially the independent-minded or the dissenting voice, the message is chillingly clear: Your parliamentary seat is one politically motivated charge away from being lost. If the state machinery wants you gone, it needs no Supreme Court. It needs only a single magistrate—and a compliant Speaker.
Yet Zambia has seen better legal thought. Fifty-five years ago, in In Re Liso (1969), our judiciary showed a kind of principled bravery that now seems rare. There, the Court of Appeal ruled that a Member of Parliament whose sentence was quashed on appeal was to be treated as if he had never lost his seat. The reasoning was elegant and timeless: if the law aims to be just, it cannot act on the temporary fiction of a conviction that might not survive appeal. To disqualify a representative based on a conviction not yet final is to commit an injury not only against that member, but against the constituents who entrusted him with their vote.
Contrast that with today’s disheartening spectacle. We are watching a slow corrosion of representative democracy, where the finality of judicial determination is no longer a prerequisite for political disqualification. This is not constitutionalism; this is political engineering draped in judicial robes.
In the backdrop of this legal regression is another structural reality we must confront: the *commercialization of political life*. To become a Member of Parliament in Zambia is no small feat. It demands enormous financial capital, social mobilization, and the patience to navigate party gatekeeping and constituency patronage. It is, in every sense, an investment—sometimes of a lifetime. And yet, this investment is now vulnerable to loss by virtue of a single conviction rendered by a court that may later be overturned.
This is not how a democracy preserves its representatives. This is how autocracies eliminate threats.
The danger is not only to individuals like Chitotela or Chilangwa—it is to the architecture of representative politics itself. A democracy in which lower courts have the power to reshape Parliament without finality is a democracy walking on judicial quicksand. One need not be a conspiracy theorist to detect a pattern: opposition figures, dissenting MPs, and unyielding backbenchers appear to face the music of the courts more often—and more harshly—than those in executive favour.
What then is the remedy?
First, the Constitution must be read with the wisdom that In Re Liso gifted us: that a conviction is not a political death sentence until it has passed the threshold of finality. That presumption of innocence does not vanish upon sentencing by a magistrate. That Parliament is not an administrative post that can be vacated like a civil service job, but a sacred trust between the people and their representative.
Second, there is need for constitutional amendment—or at the very least, judicial interpretation—to clarify that Article 72(2)(b) must be triggered only upon exhaustion of appeal. Anything less is a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of constitutional justice.
Third, the Office of the Speaker must be protected from being used as a blunt instrument for partisan advantage. The role requires constitutional detachment and procedural neutrality—not political arithmetic.
And finally, the Zambian voter must awaken to the fact that democracy is not merely voting once every five years. It is also defending the legitimacy of those votes from being stolen not just by rigging or corruption, but by premature legal disqualification weaponized for political ends.
History has an unforgiving gaze. One day, when the names of Chilangwa, Chitotela, and Munir Zulu are studied not just for their political lives but for the legal crucibles they endured, the question will be asked: did Zambia in 2024 allow lower courts to unmake Parliament without appeal? Or did we find again, in our judicial memory, the courage of In Re Liso?
The answer lies not just in courtrooms, but in whether we still believe that representation, like justice, must not be rushed.
