CHOMBA MUSIKA
Lusaka
THE Court of Appeal has dismissed a lawsuit in which HoneyBee Pharmacy Limited, former Minister of Health Chitalu Chilufya and others wanted to block Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Gilbert Phiri from appealing against their acquittal.
This means that Mr Phiri can now proceed with a substantive appeal against the acquittal of HoneyBee Pharmacy Limited and others.
Others who were acquitted are former Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Kakulubelwa Mulalelo and Wilson Lungu, a Ministry of Health former procurement officer.
The rest are former Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority director of procurement Bonaventure Chilinde and HoneyBee officials Zakir HussainMotala, Chomba Kaoma, Imran Lunat and Abdurrahim Motala.
The case is in connection with a 2021 criminal case involving the infamous 2020 HoneyBee drugs scandal involving US$17 million.
Dr Chilufya and others were acquitted by a magistrate’s following the withdrawal of a corruption related complaint against them filed by a complainant who wanted to privately prosecute the case.
The acquittal, for which the ‘accused’ did take plea and did not go into trial, raised serious concerns regarding its legitimacy because no grounds were furnished concerning the withdrawal.
Dissatisfied with this procedure, the DPP last year went to the High Court and applied for leave or permission out of time to appeal against the acquittal of the eight.
In September last year, the High Court’s Economic and Financial Crimes Division granted Mr Phiri permission to appeal against the acquittal of Dr Chilufya and others outside time.
The court allowed the plea for the late appeal because the matter raised serious legal questions which needed scrutiny.
Unhappy with this decision, HoneyBee Pharmacy Limited and others went to the Court of Appeal to challenge the High Court’s decision, which was in favour of the State.
They questioned whether or not the lower court was in order to grant Mr Phiri leave to appeal out of time.
In a latest ruling, the Court of Appeal confirmed the High Court’s decision to allow the DPP to appeal out of time.
The court ruled that granting leave to appeal out of time is interlocutory in nature and cannot be appealed against.
The court also acknowledged that Section 15(1) of the Court of Appeal Act allows parties to appeal against High Court judgments, rulings and orders.
But it emphasised that interlocutory rulings, which allow proceedings to continue without finalising a matter, cannot be challenged…https://enews.daily-mail.co.zm/welcome/home
