Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Mary Kachale Wednesday tussled with Supreme Court of Appeal Judge, Dustain Mwaungulu, in a case in which convicted former attorney general, Raphael Kasambara, and two other convicts are fighting for bail pending an appeal.<\/p>\n
Kasambara was present in court together with Macdonald Kumwembe and Pika Manondo who were also convicted in connection with the attempted murder of former budget director Paul Mphwiyo in 2013.<\/p>\n
Kachale while openly declaring her respect for the judge maintained her stand that Mwaungulu should recuse himself for alleged bias, after he commented \u201cnegatively\u201d on a professional google group on a bail case for Kumwembe.<\/p>\n
She said it is of paramount importance that impartiality is exercised in the case adding that the comments by Mwaungulu are contrary to the code of conduct of judicial officers and therefore, the DPP is of the view that a judge should not sit on a case which he has \u201cnegatively\u201d commented on.<\/p>\n
But Mwaungulu vehemently denied any wrong doing and argued that interest of justice and circumstances are the same and downplayed assertions by the DPP that the Supreme Court is divided over the matter.<\/p>\n
Said Kachale: \u201cAny reasonable mind reading your views or the court\u2019s view, of course in your personal capacity, would conclude that you were biased towards the other party\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cJudges are restrained from commenting on matters that are impending before court. This is not a personal attack, we respect you but this is a case whereby reasonable application is needed because my lord, you commented on that particular case.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Mwaungulu faulted Kachale\u2019s reasoning and conclusions arguing that the two cases are not one and the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is painful to recuse myself but my comments cannot affect the ruling of the case. You think by saying that bail is granted in special circumstances then that decision is not in the interest of justice to release or detain. Even in the other case it says interest of justice, so it\u2019s either special circumstances or interest of justice,\u201d Mwaungulu told the fully packed courtroom.<\/p>\n
One of the defence lawyers, Mordecai Msisha, told the court that it is impossible to find bias when arguing on a matter of principle of law and described the conversation on the google group as a \u201chealthy discussion\u201d.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Mwaungulu has instructed Kachale to file brief notes on comments raised by Friday next week.<\/p>\n
Mwaungulu, however, did not give indications as to when he will make a ruling to the application for the recusal, and jokingly said it will depend whether, just like Jesus Christ, he will resurrect after Easter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Mary Kachale Wednesday tussled with Supreme Court of Appeal Judge, Dustain Mwaungulu, in a case in which convicted former attorney general, Raphael Kasambara, and two other convicts are fighting for bail pending an appeal. Kasambara was present in court together with Macdonald Kumwembe and Pika Manondo who were also convicted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44363,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44355\/revisions\/44363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}