1 October 2008
THE Lusaka High Court has allowed acting President, Rupiah Banda, to start contempt proceedings against Post Newspapers Editor-in Chief, Fred M'membe.
High Court Judge, Charles Kajimanga, made the ruling yesterday after Mr Banda, applied for ex-parte summons for leave to start contempt proceedings against Mr M'membe.
This is in the case in which Mr Banda was last week granted an injunction to restrain The Post newspapers, who are the defendants in the matter, from running editorial opinions defamatory of him, namely that he was a crook, a criminal and unreliable.
Mr Banda, through his lawyers, Christopher Mundia and Company, also wanted the court to restrain the defendants from publishing words that he was not a person trustworthy to the electorate as the President of Zambia.
He claimed that the defendants had carried out malicious, unjustified, unproved and unfounded libellous statements against him, a campaign intended to destroy his political career or to mislead the public.
The court granted Mr Banda the injunction on Friday last week but the newspaper in its Monday edition published an article under the headline "RB a shameless liar" prompting him to apply for contempt proceedings.
In his application, Mr Banda urged the court to grant him leave to start contempt proceedings against Mr M'membe for his failure to honour the injunction.
He claimed that Mr M'membe had disobeyed the order and had continued defamatory opinions against him and that the article was a total defiance and disregard of an injunction lawfully obtained from Judge Kajimanga.
Mr Banda stated that the opinion in Monday's edition of The Post newspaper was highly defamatory of him as it was meant or understood to mean that he was dishonest, corrupt and pursuing his election campaign through bribery and corruption.
He said the article also characterised him as a tribalist and all the opinions were defamatory.
Mr Banda said The Post newspaper, through Mr M'membe, knew that the opinion was defamatory of him and that the injunction was meant to keep the status quo that the libellous words against him be stopped until determination of the matter.
The matter comes up on October 3.
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