Edgar Lungu family's appeal to halt burial of former Zambian president dismissed
The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday dismissed, with costs, the Edgar Lungu family’s application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal regarding the repatriation of the former Zambian President’s remains.
This decision confirms the high court’s prior ruling that authorised the Zambian government to repatriate Lungu’s body for a state funeral and burial.
In their application, the Lungu family held that the matter raised important legal questions worthy of adjudication by the country’s highest court.
However, the court rejected these claims, stating that there were no reasonable prospects of success in their appeal. Furthermore, the court indicated that the nature of this case is closely linked to specific factual circumstances, suggesting that similar cases are unlikely to arise in the future.
Last month, the high court ruled that Lungu’s body must be released for repatriation to his home country of Zambia, for burial in a state funeral.
“The court in this case concluded that the government of Zambia is entitled to proceed with the state funeral for the late president of Zambia,” Deputy Judge President of the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa, Aubrey Ledwaba, said at the time.
This was after the high court in June unexpectedly halted plans by the family to bury the former president in South Africa. The court ruling was delivered just moments before a private ceremony was set to commence in Gauteng.
The Lungu family has firmly held that the former president’s dying wishes were that his successor and political nemesis, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, should not go anywhere near his body.
The Pretoria court’s decision marked another development in the ongoing heated dispute between Lungu’s family and the Zambian government over the former head of state’s final resting place.
Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died on 5 June in South Africa, where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness. He was 68.
sinenhlanhla.masilela@iol.co.za
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