Bill 7: Battle of civil societies rages, as Constitutional Court urged to dismiss petition by Oasis Forum

A coalition of civil society organisations has urged the Constitutional Court to dismiss the Oasis Forum’s petition challenging Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Bill No. 7, arguing that the case is premature, improperly commenced and legally spent.

The organisations told the court that the petition, which seeks to invalidate the actions of President Hakainde Hichilema’s Technical Committee on Constitutional Amendments, merely recycles issues that were either already before the courts or have been conclusively determined.

The Oasis Forum—anchored by the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ), the Non-Governmental Organisations’ Coordinating Council (NGOCC), the three church mother bodies (Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops, Christian Council of Zambia and Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia), and the LCK Freedom Foundation—has asked the court to nullify all actions and documents arising from the Technical Committee, which it describes as unconstitutional and opaque.

However, in a sworn affidavit, Centre for Peace, Research and Advocacy Executive Director Cliffton Chifuwe argued that the petition was statute-barred and procedurally defective.

“The filing of the present petition while an earlier constitutional cause remains pending amounts to parallel proceedings over substantially similar subject matter,” Chifuwe stated.

He explained that Constitutional Cause No. 2025/CCZ/0015, earlier instituted by the same petitioner, LAZ, had already challenged the continuation of the legislative process relating to Bill 7 on similar constitutional grounds.

According to Chifuwe, entertaining the new petition would expose the court to duplicative litigation.

“Such proceedings are likely to occasion conflicting decisions and constitute an abuse of the process of this Honourable Court,” he said.

The consortium further argued that the core complaints raised by the Oasis Forum related to executive and administrative actions, including the appointment of the Technical Committee and the manner in which public views were collected.

“These are matters properly amenable to judicial review, not a constitutional petition,” Chifuwe argued.

He added that the same administrative issues were already before the High Court under Cause No. 2025/HP/1614, further compounding the problem of multiple proceedings over the same dispute.

The affidavit also emphasised that Bill 7 was still undergoing the legislative process and had not yet been enacted into law.

“No constitutional amendment has yet crystallised into law capable of producing legal consequences for constitutional invalidation,” Chifuwe stated.

The civil society coalition accused the Oasis Forum of inviting the Constitutional Court to interfere prematurely in Parliament’s legislative domain, contrary to established legal principles.

It cited Constitutional Cause No. 2025/CCZ/009, in which the court had previously ruled on the legality of initiating the amendment process.

“By reason of that prior determination, this Honourable Court is functus officio, and the present petition is barred by issue estoppel,” Chifuwe said.

The coalition argued that the combination of parallel proceedings, improper procedure, prematurity and abuse of process rendered the Oasis Forum’s petition incompetent and liable to dismissal.

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