By Chinoyi Chipulu
Lukashya member of parliament George Chisanga has questioned whether Speaker of the National Assembly Nellie Mutti has authority to declare a seat vacant without the Constitutional Court making a determination on the matter.
And Chisanga said Mutti ‘s decision to declare the Petauke Central seat vacant showed that institutions did not have regard for each other.
Two weeks ago, Mutti gave Petauke Central member of parliament Emmanuel Jay Banda a seven day ultimatum in which to report to the house failure to which his seat would be declared vacant following his absence from the house since August 2024.
But Chisanga said in an interview yesterday that parliament did not interfere in matters that were in court.
Chisanga said when the matter was in court, the speaker could not do anything untill the court makes a determination.
“In as far as we are concerned, these government institutions or these institutions do not have regard for each other, because that matter was in court,” Chisanga said.
He said Banda’s case was an intricate case because the public was unaware of what happened to him.
“You know when that ultimatum was given, we went to court to go and question the power of the speaker to declare a seat vacant without allowing the Constitutional Court which is mandated to make that decision, to hear the matter and determine it,” he said .
“That was ignored, the speaker went ahead and informed ECZ of that vacancy, but at the time she is doing that, the government had come in the open to say Jay Jay was in their custody because he has been captured in Harare. Now it raises questions because when he went missing he was in the custody of the state.”
He said people were now suggesting that the state knew where Banda was.
“When this announcement of the capture was made, the minister came to the public and said Jay Jay was going to be brought to the country after engagement from Zambia and Zimbabwean authorities, so why hasn’t the state brought him?” Chisanga said. “This raises questions of whether the state is deliberately hiding him so that they can can cause a by-election or the state was not telling the truth of whether they had captured Jay Jay.”
