Lusaka – Zambia’s Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government’s closure of the private Post newspaper was illegal, in the latest repudiation of former president Edgar Lungu’s hardball tactics.
The government forced the Post into liquidation in 2016 over claims of unpaid taxes, but the tactics and timing made the decision seem like political retribution.
The move came during a heated election campaign, and was followed by the arrest of two editors – on charges that never stuck.
“We hold that the action of the liquidator prior to and post the purported liquidation of the Post Newspaper Limited, are of no legal effect whatsoever,” Chief Justice Mumba Malila said in the ruling.
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The decision was based on technicalities and left in place a separate legal challenge to the closure.
Any possibility of reopening the Post, which had employed 1,500 people, remains unclear.
But the ruling marked another reversal of Lungu’s tactics.
He lost last year’s election to Hakainde Hichilema, who has sought to bring Zambia back into donors’ good graces by cleaning up the government’s finances and restoring his nation’s reputation for democracy.
An Amnesty International report on Lungu’s “ruling by fear and repression” included the Post’s closure among his rights violations, along with the arrests of opposition leaders and activists and brutal killings by the police.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Unsplash
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