Former opposition MP Mike Mukebayi has appealed to Minister of Justice to look into his and other individuals’ prolonged court cases.
Mukebayi has clocked 20 months in prison without the court delivering its judgement that has been continuously postponed to since his arrest in May, 2023.
Through his lawyers, Mukebayi has submitted that he and many other prisoners incarcerated at Makala dungeon would be eligible for presidential pardon but have not had their judgements delivered for a long time.
“Many prisoners from Makala Central Prison eligible for presidential pardon may not be entitled. For cause: the requisitions of their convictions never left the courts and courts for the Makala penitentiary grafting, the pronouncement of the judgment having not been operated in public hearing before the or defendants once the case was taken up deliberately. So they are not recorded on the spot as convicted with a fixed term of imprisonment,” Mukebayi has lamented.
The close ally of popular opposition leader Moïse Katumbi has since called on Minister of Justice to actively address this challenge.
“Interpellation to the Minister of State in charge of Justice, Constant Mutamba, to lean on this dysfunction of justice to the penitentiary system likely to leave in jail, here and in the provinces, hundreds of right-holders to the presidential clemency,” he said.
“His avowed concern to humanize prison life by de-engorging prisons compels him there.”
Mukebayi has been incarcerated since May, 2023 when he was arrested on allegations of inciting the public against the state.