By PERPETUAL SICHIKWENKWE –
THE Supreme Court yesterday dismissed an appeal for Constitutional bail by murdered National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) student Ruth Mbandu’s Uncle George Kalomo.
A bench of judges comprising, Gregory Phiri, Evans Hamaundu and Florence Lengalenga said they could not entertain Kalomo’s appeal because trial in the matter in which he is alleged to have murdered his niece was ongoing in the High Court.
This is in a matter in which Kalomo had appealed to the Supreme Court against the High Court’s decision to refuse him Constitutional bail after he complained of delayed committal of his murder case to the High Court for trial.
Mr Justice Phiri said the appeal by Kalomo was improper because the Supreme Court could only hear appeals when a matter had been concluded by the High Court.
“The application as it purports to be is therefore dismissed,” Mr Justice Phiri told Kalomo’s lawyer Kelvin Hang’andu when he refused an application for leave to file his clients’ arguments out of time.
Mr Justice Phiri said that the bench was concerned that Kalomo was appealing to the Supreme Court when he had already been committed to the High Court and his trial was on.
He said the court did not want to go into hearing the details of Kalomo’s arguments which were irrelevant but that it would exercise its discretion to refuse the application and throw out the appeal.
Mr Justice Phiri said the court did not see any reason as to why Kalomo should be granted leave to file his arguments out of time on an appeal case when it had not seen the complete record of the judgment from the High Court.
He wondered why Kalomo could not redeem his appeal for Constitutional bail in an event that he had been committed to the High Court for trial.
He advised Kalomo to use other ways in taking the matter to the Supreme Court and not through an appeal.
Mr Hang’andu had argued that the appeal for Constitutional bail by Kalomo was properly taken to court, as such he expected the court to give his client an audience.
