COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE CONCLUDES REVIEW OF REPORT OF ZAMBIA

CAT
27th session
20 November 2001
Afternoon




Government Delegation Says Standards of Convention Will Be
"Domesticated" into National Law



The Committee against Torture concluded its consideration this afternoon of an initial report of Zambia, hearing Government officials state that the standards of the Convention against Torture would be "domesticated" into national law as a matter of priority and that a specific definition and crime of torture would be established and put into effect.

B.C. Mutale, Attorney-General of Zambia, responding to questions put by Committee members on Monday morning, also said that police officers had been tried and sentenced in a number of cases for acts amounting to torture; that canning and other corporal punishment of prisoners had been outlawed; and that domestication of the Convention would include a ban on the use in court of any evidence obtained by torture.

Committee members Monday had noted a"lack of consonance" between the Zambian legal regime and the Convention, decrying, for example, a current situation in which -- the report admitted -- evidence extracted by torture was admissible in court, leading to widespread maltreatment of suspects by police officers. Committee members said they also had heard that corporal punishment of prisoners was permissible and frequently occurred.

The Committee will issue its conclusions and recommendations on the Zambian report at 10 a.m. on Friday, 23 November.

Zambia, as one of the 126 States parties to the Convention against Torture, is required to present periodic summations to the Committee of national efforts to put the Convention's provisions into effect. Government delegations generally appear before the Committee during the consideration of such reports to answer questions and provide additional information.

The Committee will reconvene at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 21 November, in closed session. It will hold a public meeting at 3 p.m. to issue conclusions and recommendations on the third periodic report of Ukraine and to continue its examination of the third periodic report of Israel.


Discussion

B.C. MUTALE, Attorney-General of Zambia, responding to questions put by the Committee on Monday morning, said among other things that the Government was committed to meeting its international obligations and recognized that all international treaties needed to be "domesticated" as a matter of priority. That included giving domestic effect to the Convention against Torture, and a five-year plan under the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) included carrying out this task. Cooperation with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) would continue, although of course the Government had final responsibility and final authority for issuing reports on treaty compliance.

The Government realized there was a need for Zambia to consider making declarations on articles 21 and 22 of the Convention, to allow individual complaints to the Committee, Mr. Mutale said.

The Zambian National Human Rights Commission was independent of the Government, and had a separately funded budget, Mr. Mutale said; under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, an additional dose of funding had been given to the Commission. No Government department had control over the Human Rights Commission.

A 1997 coup attempt referred to by the Committee was an insurrection by armed forces personnel against a legitimate democratic Government, the Attorney-General said; force had had to be used to quell the insurrection. The rebel soldiers who were apprehended were taken to police quarters; a good number of them appeared to have been beaten up at the army and mass media headquarters, but since this was a "war", so to speak, that was not unexpected. There was no torture carried out at the police station. There had been allegations that the coup participants were later tortured, and steps had been taken to look into the matter, and a special commission had determined that there had been cases of torture, but the investigation had not shown conclusive evidence of when and by whom certain injuries were inflicted on the suspects. Damages were not awarded because, among other things, the recommended awards appeared arbitrary, without regard to the injuries suffered. The Government did, however, cover the hospitalization costs of all accused coup participants who were injured, and ensured that they were given fair trials in civilian courts. The Government in good faith had set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the allegations made against its officers.

Independence of the judiciary in Zambia was ensured through an appointment mechanism subject to the scrutiny of Parliament, Mr. Mutale said. There was security of tenure for judges, and protections and standards were offered by the Judicial Code of Conduct.

A Legal Aid Department under the Attorney-General's Office provided assistance to underprivileged members of society, Mr. Mutale said; the Government also had come up with a Legal Aid (Amendment) Act which created a fund meant to meet the costs of private lawyers interested in providing legal services to the poor.

Unlawful orders of superior officers were not allowed and were not to be obeyed, Mr. Mutale said; the Zambia Police Act referred only to obedience to lawful orders, as did the Service Standing Orders.

Prohibition of torture was non-derogable under any circumstances, Mr. Mutale said, as stated in article 30 of the Zambian Constitution.

The Minister of Home Affairs had been mandated to appoint members of the Police Public Complaints Authority, Mr. Mutale said; the Authority was not yet operational but had been budgeted for year 2002 so as to make it effective.

The Attorney-General was not allowed to extradite a person to a country where he was likely to be tortured, he said.

Police officers had been charged with offenses relating to torture, and the actual numbers would be made available to the Committee in due course, Mr. Mutale said; in addition, officers who had committed crimes of that nature had been prosecuted and were serving sentences. The actual numbers would be supplied.

The State would ensure that torture became a crime in its own right and that the crime would be extraditable, Mr. Mutale said; in the interim the State would ensure that existing penal law would be used to punish perpetrators of torture so as to avoid lacuna created by the lack of a specific offense of torture. There was no difficulty, as suggested by the Committee, in prosecuting errant police officers; that had been done in a number of cases. The functions of prosecution, moreover, would soon be removed from the Police Department and placed within a Department of the Public Prosecutor. Standards prohibiting the use in court of evidence extracted by torture would be included in steps "domesticating" the Convention into Zambian law.

In the Ronald Penza case, Mr. Mutale said, the persons referred to by the Committee were not connected to the Penza killing, but were involved in an aggravated robbery, exchanged fire with police officers and were killed. The suspects involved in the case were three, not eight, as mentioned. The misinformation was the result of an administrative lapse by a police spokesman who had been disciplined. The Penza killers were still at large.

In the case of a grade 12 school student who died in custody, the police officer found responsible was convicted of manslaughter and was now serving a sentence for that offense, Mr. Mutale said.

A Victim Support Unit had been created with the aim of protecting the rights of the most disadvantaged groups in society, including women and children, Attorney-General Mutale said; the unit worked with victims of domestic violence, and training was being given to police officers on how to cope with cases of domestic violence.

The State would undertake all necessary measures to enable arraigned persons to be brought to court in time, Mr. Mutale said.

Women were not kept in the same prisons as men, Mr. Mutale said, and any male visitor to a women's prison had to be accompanied by a female warden.

Discipline within prisons was based on sections 97 and 98 of the Prisons Act, he said, and included, for minor offenses, confinement in separate cells for up to 14 days, reduced diets, and forfeiture of remission of sentence of up to 30 days; and for major offenses, confinement in a separate cell for up to 25 days and forfeiture of remission of sentence not exceeding 60 days. The celebrated case of John Banda vs. the People had outlawed corporal punishment, and a circular dated 27 December 1999 had directed all prison authorities to stop the practice of canning.

Zambian prisons were congested and conditions were generally bad, Mr. Mutale said, and the Government was struggling with its limited resources to create more humane conditions.

A case mentioned by the Committee involving Emily Sikazwe had never been reported to the relevant authorities, Mr. Mutale said; the Government only had learned of the matter from a newspaper. Since a complaint was not filed, the State was not in a position to comment further on the matter.

The crime of rape was a felony in Zambia and its punishment ranged from three years in prison to life imprisonment, Mr. Mutale said; a judge had no discretion to pronounce sentences outside those limits, and the possibility of paying victims of rape some form of compensation in place of trial and conviction was totally ruled out. The State, he wished to assert in no uncertain terms, did not encourage impunity for rape. On the matter of sexual demands by police officers, the State categorically denied allegations that this occurred; there had been no such cases brought to the attention of the relevant authorities.





* *** *