Zambian AG appointment invalid, apex court rules

Zambia’s Constitutional Court has just delivered a decision that is causing some concern among members of the public. It’s a judgment that found the appointment of a senior civil servant, the Auditor-General, was unconstitutional as the man holding the post was over the stipulated retirement age. But there was a second reason: required appointment mechanisms for the post weren’t applied in his case. As Carmel Rickard explains in her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site, however, those appointment mechanisms form part of legislation that has been enacted, but that – 10 years later – still hasn’t officially commenced.