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The
prisons visit programme covered within the legal aid project continued to
yield positive results by securing the release of detainees, refugees,
prohibited immigrants, juveniles and even convicted inmates through criminal
appeals. The programme has spread to other provinces where the Foundation has
set up centres. Prison visits are normally carried out by paralegals and
interns studying law at the university of Zambia who are on long-term
attachment to the Foundation. The interns are assigned specific areas of
operation in view of the various categories of inmates. The main categories
are; remandees, refugees or asylum seekers, prohibited immigrants and
juveniles. Remandees include all the detainees whose cases are still going on
in court or awaiting judgement. A total of 545 cases emerged from the
prisons; Southern zone had 397 and Northern zone had 148.
The
prisons are overcrowded for a variety of reasons, which include the slow pace
of delivering justice, the increase in the crime rate, the non-construction
or expansion of new prisons since independence as well as the influx of
illegal immigrants. The Foundation attends to any remand prisoner requesting
legal assistance, but does not necessarily grant them legal representation.
The success of the programme is to be readily seen in the number of remandees
being released through the intervention of the Foundation. The LRF prisons
visitation programme is intended, among other purposes, to decongest the
prisons and to identify and address cases of prolonged detention without
trial. When the programme was launched in 1998, when the first batch of
habeas corpus cases was launched, up to 30% of the inmates had been in prison
for longer than three years and many of them were not even undergoing trial.
This year, there are under 10% of inmates who have spent longer than 3 years
at Lusaka Central Prison and only a negligible number are not appearing in
court. LRF interns seek audience with the relevant state authorities
responsible for each case and argue out principles of the law after
consulting LRF lawyers. The individual cases are screened and those that are
selected are forwarded to lawyers who commence litigation where possible.
Refugees
/ Asylum Seekers
The LRF has always felt that it is one of the worst
injustices imaginable for a person fleeing from strife in his own country and
hoping to find sanctuary elsewhere to be rounded up and thrown into jail to
mingle with common criminals, convicts and suspects in a foreign land. The
Foundation finds detaining of refugees to be a gross violation of human
rights and the international instruments to which Zambia has acceded and
ratified. Its intervention is therefore a necessary approach in seeking the
release of refugees who immigration authorities wrongly detain on suspicion
of being Prohibited Immigrants. Further the Foundation, by liasing with the
UNHCR, assists refugees through the use of international legal instruments to
obtain refugee status. The Immigration department has no single established
detention centre and the people they arrest and detain are normally handed
over to the prisons. Even then they deliberately forget to constantly check
on the detainees. This attitude militates against the refugees who remain
defenceless once locked in prisons. The refugees are attended to and assisted
through seeking audience with appropriate authorities that include the
Ministry of Home Affairs and United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
During
the year the Foundation succeeded in causing the release of 106 refugees from
prisons whose nationalities were as follows; Angolans 6, Burundese 29,
Rwandese 30, Liberians 8, Somalis 9, Ugandans 1, Congolese 15, Ethiopians 2
and Sierra leone 3
Noteworthy
Case
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Kisumbule Kibonga a Congolese was arrested for not having valid documents. He
married a Zambian woman and they live in Petauke. Immigration Officers picked
up Kibonga when he was visiting Lusaka and detained him for 4 months at
Kamwala Remand Prison. The Foundation intervened through the Ministry of Home
Affairs, who gave Kibonga an option to either relocate to Maheba Refugee Camp
or return to Petauke. He preferred to go back to Petauke and was granted
Refugee Status.
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Dilein Johnson from Liberia who entered Zambia in 1998 had been caught at the
Kasumbalesa border carrying a fake Tanzanian passport. When Legal Resources
Foundation found him he had served a one-year sentence already but had
remained in prison for over two and a half years after its completion. He was
eventually repatriated with the help of the Foundation, to Maheba Refugee
Camp in North-Western Province.
Prohibited
Immigrants
 Prohibited Immigrants (PIs) are persons that enter Zambia without
any valid documents or who do not report their presence upon entry to an
immigration officer, or whose presence in the country is illegal. The status
of a PI is very easy to acquire, as it does not require any judicial inquiry.
An immigration officer may designate any person whom he reasonably believes
to have entered Zambia illegally as such. Most of the PI s were assisted
after serving sentence to avoid being over detained though some PIs stay
longer after completion of their jail term. The nationalities of the 154 PIs
attended to included Angolans, Somalis, Burundese, Ivorians, Congolese (DR),
South Africans, Zimbabweans, Ghanaians, Tanzanians, Malawians, Ugandans,
Guineans, Sierra Leoneans, Liberians, Ethiopians and Rwandese. Some came from
as far as Afhaganistan, Austria, Sri Lanka and the USA.
Congo
DR PIs were the majority with 54 followed by Liberians 20, Sierra Leone 15
and Tanzania 12. Burundi, Angola and Rwanda had 5 apiece. Further, Prohibited
Immigrants (PIs) were assisted in securing passage to their countries of
origin by the Foundation through efforts made in contacting their relations
in their countries to either send money or solicit for air tickets. During
the year the Foundation secured the release and eventual deportation of 154
PIs who were deported to their countries of origin. Those that could not
establish origins were accorded refugee status and relocated to Refugee
camps.
It is
extremely difficult for the under funded Immigration Department to effect
deportations timely. Due to lack of funds to facilitate the deportations PIs
whose passage requires the acquisition of air tickets are made to languish in
prison with very little hope of being at liberty.
However
only those whose countries share frontiers with Zambia are deported at
relatively regular intervals because transport is availed up to the exit
point, but even these trips are often cancelled due to lack of funds to
procure fuel. Deportation of PIs from West Africa and other foreign countries
that require airfares is not availed by the government. The Foundation adopts
other approaches in assisting this class of immigrants, through viable
applications in courts of law.
Noteworthy
Cases
- Abbas Ishmael a Liberian national was arrested on November 14, 1999
for illegal entry in Zambia. He was handed over to the Immigration who
detained him under warrant. LRF managed to secure his Refugee status that was
granted and he relocated to a Refugee camp in June 2001.
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Kabanga Sath a Tanzanian was detained after being found in possession of an
expired permit while conducting business at City Market in Lusaka. He was
later deported after his friends at the market came to his aid to pay for his
passage to Tanzania.
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Sunday Lwanga a Ugandan national was arrested by the Immigration Department
on June 5, 2000 for being in possession of a forged travel document
purporting to be Malawian, he was declared a Prohibited Immigrant. Lwanga was
granted refugee status in Malawi but was willing to be deported to Uganda.
His status was confirmed through UNHCR. The Immigration Department was
challenged to justify his detention, which they failed and was finally
released on January 21, 2001.
Juveniles
Juvenile offenders are incarcerated in the same cells with adult offenders.
This presents a very serious problem. The Foundation attended to 36 juveniles
around Lusaka prisons of whom 23 were released after the lawyers made bail
applications. The other 13 juveniles face serious offences such as murder and
drug possession, in respect of which bail is not available. Most of the
juveniles who were first offenders were either given suspended sentences or
acquitted.
The
state of prisons in Zambia is so alarming that the very act of being present
as an inmate is degrading and inhuman treatment contrary to the Torture
Convention and indeed the Constitution of Zambia. All of Zambia's prisons
were constructed in colonial times to hold less than a tenth of their present
number of prisoners. Often the prisons are a source of diseases like
tuberculosis and diarrhoea. In situations of this nature it unavoidably
behoves the Foundation to secure the release of juveniles from confinement.
Noteworthy
Cases
- Cretious Tembo a juvenile was jointly charged with two counts of
stock theft. The Foundation sought the juveniles report on the alleged
offender, which was later presented to the magistrate's court and bail
request was granted.
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Chisanga Henry was charged with theft of a tent. The case was later
determined in court and the juvenile was given a suspended sentence.
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