Privileges Committee Of Parliament Consults Court On Application Of Contempt’s

Privileges Committee of Parliament on Friday, saught legal guidance from the Judiciary on how it can legally execute some of its functions particularly on matters of Contempt of Parliament Act.

The Committee wanted to hear from courts how they handle cases on the contempt of court so that same rules can be applied by the committee when resolving issues that contravene the parliamentary privileges.

Chigona

Joseph Chigona, Registrar of the High Court and Supreme Court confirmed the development immediately he finished meeting with the Committee on Friday.

“The issue for discussion today was on contempt of court” He said 

Mzomera

But the Chairperson for the Privilages Committee, Rev. Christopher Mzomera Ngwira described the meeting with the Registrar as moment of borrowing a leaf from the judiciary and said “We have learnt a lot.”

“The main issue of summoning the registrar to appear before the Committee of Privileges is because this is a newly formed Parliamentary Committee which is mandated to look into the welfare of the members of Parliament and all staff working here. 

Now, there is Contempt of Parliament Act here and in courts there is Contempt of Court. So, we wanted to know from them as to how they deal with someone found to have been in Contempt of Court, what punishments and how do they apply such punishments. So, this Committee will be dealing with the very same issues so we wanted to borrow leaf from them.” He said 

Ngwira mentioned that his Committee is mandated to be handling; conflicts among members of Parliament, conditions of services, privileges, bleach of privileges like summons and arrests for parliamentarian during the Meeting of National Assembly as well as handle issues of absenteeism among legislatures as some of the issues that require legal help for them to appropriately apply appropriate action.

“This is what indeed we needed to learn from our courts as well, what is it they should expect us to be doing so that we should also have a limit because there is separate of powers between parliament and law enforcers so we wanted to get that guidance.” Said Ngwira

“So you will see that this is a very serious issue, that needed courts to civic educate us so that what we will be doing should have a backing from the legal perspective because sometimes you can take an action and resulting a member rushing to court to get an injunction. So we want to do things with confidence that we are doing the rightful thing. “ he added