We strongly concur with the acute observation by the Prisons Care and Counselling Association (PRISCA) which has rightly charged that the law in Zambia is harsh on the poor and soft on the rich.
True to Dr Malembeka’s observation, commercialising the judicial system through emphasis on cash bail is no way to go especially in a country that prides itself as a Christian Nation.
It is a crying shame that 50 years after Zambia got independence, justice is closed to the poor and only open to the rich and powerful who can either afford a cash bail or hire a lawyer.
Access to justice is a basic human rights and thus should be open to any Zambian regardless of social status, gender, nationality or tribe.
The country has already reached a stage where system of justice only favours the rich.
Isn’t it ironical that during the independence struggle, nationalists complained of the prejudiced judicial system in colonial Zambia since white judges and magistrates used to be mostly biased against blacks especially in cases of political nature?
Here we are after half a century of independence seeing a judicial system that disadvantaged blacks now being used to alienate the poor.
What we know is that crime is indeed prevalent in all social classes and punishment should reflect this reality in correctional centres where we should see an equal number of apamwambas-(upper class) and the poor.
Why then does our society only punish offenders from the low-income bracket when there are those who are guilty of  financial crimes?
The whole thing about people being convicted differently just because they come from areas like Kabulonga or Misisi needs serious re-examination.
We feel this is an indirect exploitation of the poor and vulnerable members of society by law enforcement and the court system.
Oftentimes, people of lower economic classes and especially the poor within that demographic end up in correctional centres simply because they don’t have the means to defend themselves from allegations made against them.
A significant percentage of those ‘crimes’ they are prosecuted for are victimless crimes in the first place and many are actually predicated on conditions created by poverty.
In addition, minor crimes of that nature often lead to more harsh punishments for future transgressions by creating a long criminal record that is used to justify tougher sentences, even though that record consists of things more affluent people would never be arrested or prosecuted for.
Recently a man was jailed for five years for being in possession of a parrot referred to in court as a ‘protected bird’ without a certificate of ownership.
Understandably, there was a general outcry from the indignant citizenry but the judicial system kept mum since it was interpreting the law as left to them by former colonial masters.
In many cases, building a criminal record based on such minor offenses is an intentional strategy used by law enforcement against the poor for that very reason.
Also note that stupid monetary-centred legal requirements like paying bail set without regard to the defendants’ financial capacity can result in the incarceration of individuals not because they pose a threat to public safety, but rather because they cannot afford the assigned bail amount.
As such, jails are often used as pre-detention centres that skirt around Constitutional requirements of “fair and equal treatment” under the law.
If poor people are regularly locked up and have bail set without regard to their ability to pay then equality under the law seems like an unlikely outcome.
The Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) and the judiciary as a whole needs to examine the biased Zambian legal system to come up with a more Zam-friendly and poor people-considerate legal system.