By Esther Chisola
The three Church mother bodies have asked the Constitutional Court to dismiss the petition which is seeking clarity on the expression “the order of nature” with regards to sexual activities.
The three include; Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) under general secretary Father Emmanuel Chikoya, Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (CCZ) under general secretary Bishop Andrew Mwenda, and the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB).
This is in a matter in which an activist Isaac Mwanza and a civil society organisation filed a petition seeking clarity on the expression “the order of nature” which relates to sexual activities.
According to the interested parties’ list of authorities and skeleton arguments for the three Church mother bodies filed, the trio submitted that the restriction of these human “desires” and “needs” is not unreasonable.
“In the same way a hungry man is restricted from stealing and a homeless man restricted from criminally trespassing another’s land, a man sexually driven is restricted from having carnal knowledge in an unnatural manner,” they stated.
The trio further submitted that the argument by the petitioner was devoid of merit on the basis that the section being alleged to contravene the aforesaid provisions had been subject of interpretation by the courts and the court had duly defined the said section and set its boundaries, contrary to the submissions of the petitioner’s.
They submitted that while it was the legislature to enact laws, it was the duty of the judiciary to interpret and bring these laws to life.
“Your petitioners here further advance the arguments that the provisions of sections 155(a) and (c) contravene the right against discrimination due to sexual orientation or gender identity. In this vein, we will argue that the above grounds of discrimination are not provided for in our constitution,” they stated. “The article of the constitution allegedly contravened provides for grounds upon which one may not be discriminated against; sexual orientation and gender identity are not among such grounds for obvious reasons.”
They submitted that the freedom of conscience was not free from legislative restriction.
“What this entails is that a state is in certain instances permitted to restrict the exercise of such freedom. We state that section 155(a) and (c) is an exercise of such restriction by the legislature and is therefore, valid,” stated the trio.
“In sum, we state that the provisions of sections 155(a) and (c) of the penal code act are valid, definitive and do not contravene any provision of the constitution. We therefore, pray that this court upholds the said provisions and dismiss this petition for lack of merit.”
