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The burial of Zambia’s Sixth Republican President, Edgar Lungu, remains in limbo after the High Court on Monday adjourned proceedings indefinitely to allow the Constitutional Court to determine a direct appeal filed by his family.
The family is seeking to overturn a North Gauteng High Court ruling in Pretoria, which granted the Zambian government the right to repatriate the former president’s remains for a State funeral and burial in Zambia.
Read more: Read more: Unexpected twist in Lungu burial dispute as family, government open talks
The adjournment followed a joint request by both parties for the matter to be stood down sine die pending the Constitutional Court process.
The court granted the request without awarding costs.
Last Friday, in a dramatic twist, the Lungu family approached the Constitutional Court just hours after informing the High Court that they were in talks with the Zambian government over burial arrangements.
In their urgent application, sworn before the Constitutional Court, widow and former First Lady Esther Lungu cited the Government of Zambia, funeral service provider Two Mountains, and South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) as respondents.
She argued that the High Court ruling violated the family’s constitutional rights to dignity, privacy, and autonomy in determining how and where their loved one should be buried.
“The order granted by the High Court unjustly stripped the family of its inherent right to determine the manner and place of President Lungu’s burial,” Mrs Lungu stated in her affidavit.
She faulted the court for applying Zambian law to a matter within South Africa’s jurisdiction, stressing that burial disputes under South African law prioritise family rights.
“The reliance on Zambian law was misplaced. This matter concerns a body lying in South Africa, and our rights under South African law must prevail,” she argued.
On the disputed funeral programme, Mrs Lungu dismissed the government’s reliance on “FAA7,” a document initially proposed by the family, saying it was never binding.
She explained that fresh negotiations held between June 18 and 23, 2025, showed no final settlement was reached.
“The government’s own version of events shows that no agreement existed. If there had been one, fresh negotiations would not have been necessary,” she said.
The affidavit further argued that even if FAA7 were considered an agreement, it became null after parties failed to agree on critical details, including whether President Hakainde Hichilema should deliver a speech at the funeral.
“Once the parties failed to agree on the details of the funeral as envisaged in FAA7, the family was entitled to resile from any agreement that may have been in place and expressly did so,” she said.
Mrs Lungu also disclosed that funeral provider Two Mountains had warned the family about the risks of keeping the body unburied for an extended period, even with advanced preservation methods.
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