By MARTIN NYIRENDA-
THE archaic administration of justice is still stabbing enough to ignore: “Improve the dispensation of the laws of the land to empower us.”
And strides are being made in that direction. But certainly a lot remains to be done.
However, with the socio-political landscape getting transformed on almost an unprecedented level under the Patriotic Front administration what with the gender rights crusades, the future holds not only great but bright future for the country as a whole.
Especially the poor men and women of society who toil to drive the economy forward are yet the worst hit by poor justice dispensation in the country.
Yes, this ably weighs in the paraphrased maxim by renowned poet and writer Jonathan Swift that the ‘cobweb catches small flies and lets big wasps to pass!’
Acting Chief Justice Lombe Chibesakunda says the Legal and Judicial Reforms Commission should help bring change in the administration of justice in Zambia.
President Michael Sata on January 24, 2014, appointed the 20-member commission of professionals from diverse backgrounds.
When swearing in the members of the commission at the High Court in Lusaka recently, Ms Justice Chibesakunda urged the commissioners to guarantee change in the administration of justice.
Ms Justice Chibesakunda urged the members to scrutinise the judicial and legal systems to detect whether they were responding to the country’s political, economic and social needs.
“If our judicial and legal systems have not responded to Zambia’s needs, the commission has to bring about change for efficient and effective administration of justice,” She said.
She reminded the members that the oath they had taken came with great responsibility and that a lot of people in the country were hopeful of good reforms from the commission.
To her, the appointment of the commission has rekindled the expectations of the public to overhaul the administration of justice.
She quips that it is gloomy that even 50 years after the country’s independence, we still have a replica of the English law structure and yet our history and our culture are different from that of England.
In his eminent 1991 book ‘Cultural Forces in World Politics, Africanist political scientist professor Ali Mazrui underscores that rather gloomy scenario when he points to the possibility that African culture has taken the wrong things from the West.
Ironically, Ms Justice Chibesakunda says the media has not explored the need for legal reforms – teh scribe’s failure to eschew social vices is a professional misfit.
Take up the legal profession, the former Chief Justice Matthew Ngulube, once challenged women, urging them that taking up the legal profession was only one way that would help eradicate marginalisation –in legal terms – of women in society, invariably improving justice dispensation.
But with Government demystifying the judiciary, it is absurd to hear of women being sidelined in the corridors of equal justice when you also reflect on the savage incidences of increased violent cases of abuse against women, let alone delayed justice!
Well, demystifying the judiciary is the most appropriate phrase, for many critics have long being trying to ensure that laws are changed to become compatible with the demands of the modern times.
The issue of gender bias in the realm of national governance and law has become a global issue not to underplay and Zambia is not alone in this fight.
Many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries have constitutions or establishing laws that provide for equal rights to men and women  –improved justice administra tion.
For instance, more than twenty-five countries in the region have already rectified or acceded to the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
This is a comprehensive treaty which requires parties to take corrective measures to improve the status of women, something many consider a step in the right direction.
But there are problems. A report by the World Bank Technical Work in Africa states that the translation of legal principles into law and the administration and enforcement of laws to redress systematic or functional discrimination can be highly problematic.
In the publication titled “Findings,” the World Bank Technical Work in Africa says: “The operation of a law may be hampered because it is poorly constructed, is inherently discriminatory against sections of society, does also not reflect the needs and capacities of a people.”
In certain instances, the law may contravene a custom or practice to which society assigns a higher priority than the formal law, or is simply ignored by those responsible for applying it.
In many cases, some people do not know their legal rights, nor have the effective means of assessing them. Institutional legal arrangements may not, therefore, create equal opportunities for women and men to participate in societies and economies.
The evolution of legal institutions and economic development in SSA demonstrates the importance of the legal norms and structures as these affect economic empowerment, particularly that of women.
Illustrations offer graphic evidence in the case of women who head about 40 per cent of African households – supply an average of 70 per cent of the labour in domestic food storage as well as 60 per cent in food marketing and 100 per cent in on farming processing.
This may be that, but in many societies of SSA, a wide range of laws and regulatory practices still prohibit and impede women to a greater extent than men in obtaining credit, productive inputs, education, training, information, and medical care needed to perform their economic roles.
Again, the distortions in resource allocation which result from such discrimination sometimes due to eroded judicial dispensation effectively carry high development costs – too high to remain invisible in the current and future development strategies.
The World Bank is still at an ‘early’ stage to examine how to address gender-responsive in countries, including, Zambia where some Women’s Lobby Group was striving to ensure that the new constitution is not gender-insensitive in any way, which would improve judicial administration.
There is something called “Legal Reforms Issues for Women in Africa,” an institution initiated by the Africa Gender Team of the World Bank in July 1991.
Its objective is to develop a sound understanding of the causes and significance of legal constraints in society.
The Team’s first challenge was to construct a conceptual framework for an integrated analysis of law, gender and economies. And it was agreed that gender bids in its various forms is often hard to detect because it is so embedded in institutions.
In many cases, judicial administration and almost all its inefficiencies put together are concealed within the basic legal principles and Conventions adopted by society – something has been applied historically.
The battle maybe a long one but giant strides to foster effective judicial reforms whose final results will not be biased are certainly most laudable.