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The ruling United Party for National Development (UPND) has rubbished claims by the opposition, especially the Patriotic Front (PF), that the new dawn government was applying the law selectively and not sticking to its promise of upholding the rule of law.
UPND Spokesperson, Cornelius Mweetwa, said in an interview with Zambia Monitor that Police discretion to prosecute individuals who have been found wanting for breaking the law should not be attributed to the UPND government that it was interfering in the application of the Public Order Act.
Mweetwa was responding to several PF Senior members’ claims that the UPND government was applying the law selectively citing recent incidence of the Police denying them to hold rallies in Lusaka and Kabwe.
He said the UPND was a government of laws and not men and, therefore, the rule of law had to apply within the framework of the law.
“I would like to challenge all those who are claiming that there is selective application of the law to point out or give an example of atleast one or two individuals who have been arrested by the Police for no contravention or violating the law,” Mweetwa said.
He said all those who had been arrested, had found themselves in contravention of the law and needed to answer to the charges leveled against them in the courts of law.
Mweetwa said there was need to move away from the notion that those occupying political leadership positions were at liberty to violate the law and when summoned by the police begin to cry foul.
“The law knows no political affiliation, the law knows no political or economic social status, the law only knows citizens as any persons and are equal before the law,” he said.
Mweetwa, however, acknowledged that under the current Public Order Act which was under review, there was work which needed to be done in order to make the police operate effectively in the application of the Act.
He said the UPND government expected the Police to apply the Public Order Act judiciously and reasonably as the country awaits for the refined Act.
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