MUTEMBO Nchito has demanded to see the tribunal report delivered to President Edgar Lungu that recommended his dismissal as Director of Public Prosecutions.

The suspended DPP has since written to the Constitutional Court, requesting it to compel the Attorney General to furnish him with the report, which the President relied on when he fired him on August 9, before the court stayed the decision.

According to an affidavit filed in the Constitutional Court, Mutembo, the petitioner, stated that the report had not been disclosed to him.

“Despite being entitled to challenge the contents of the report at law, the said report has not been furnished to me,” Mutembo stated.

“I raised extensive issues concerning bias and conflict of interest in relation to two members of the Mutembo Nchito Tribunal and if the President has relied on that Tribunal’s report, I am entitled to see it.”

Mutembo added that in the absence of the report, he was unable to appreciate and lodge an appeal in relation to how the questions of bias and conflict of interest were dealt with by the said tribunal.

On August 9, President Lungu relieved Mutembo of his duties, stating that he was acting pursuant to Article 144 of the amended Constitution and based his decision on a recommendation contained in a report he received from the tribunal.

However, Article 144, which the President was acting upon, does not recognise the existence of the justice Annel Silungwe-led tribunal.

The Constitutional provisions in Article 144, rather, gives powers to the Judicial Complaints Commission to probe the conduct of the DPP and make recommendations to the President.

When President Lungu consented to the amended Constitution in January, Mutembo wrote the Head of State, reminding him that the procedure for removing a DPP from office had changed and advised him to transfer the responsibility he had given the tribunal to the Judicial Complaints Commission.

President Lungu did not respond to Mutembo’s request, while his press aide Amos Chanda issued a statement to the media, stating that the Head of State would ignore the suspended DPP’s letter.

Mutembo is in the Constitutional Court seeking the court’s interpretation of the President’s decision to dismiss him, citing the Judicial Complaints Commission provision in the law, when the commission never sat to hear how he professionally misconducted himself as DPP.

He has also challenged the President’s decision to remove him from office, and the Constitutional Court has temporarily stayed the President’s move.

The old constitution gave powers to a tribunal appointed by the President to probe a sitting DPP and recommend a dismissal to the Head of State. But according to the amended Constitution, the procedure for removing a DPP for professional misconduct is the same as removing a High Court judge, which is through the Judicial Complaints Commission.