The family of the late former Zambian President, Edgar Lungu, has turned to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, South Africaa (SA)  for a different conclusion over the burial of their beloved. The family argues that the High Court in Pretoria erred when it upheld the Zambian Government’s claims to repatriate and bury Lungu’s remains in a state funeral in Zambia. The family contends that judgment is wrong because Lungu’s widow and her children should enjoy exclusive rights to decide how and where to bury the late President.

The family says that although it engaged with the Zambian government for a possible state funeral in Zambia, those negotiations broke down.

They argue that the Government insisted on imposing a state funeral in Zambia that would be presided over by the current president of the country.

The Lungu Family ultimately resolved to bury the late President Lungu in a private ceremony in SA, which it says was in keeping with his wishes.

However, the government contends that it has a right to the relief it sought because the Family initially agreed that the late President’s body be repatriated to Zambia for purposes of a state funeral and burial thereafter.

The Lungu family lawyer, Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, has argued that the late Lungu had explicitly opposed any involvement by current Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema in his funeral arrangements, citing long-standing personal and political tensions between the two leaders.

Ngcukaitobi further told the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein that the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria erred in finding that the Zambian government had established a clear legal right to repatriate Lungu’s remains.

The case comes as Zambia prepares to mark the first anniversary of Lungu’s death on June 5, with the dispute over where and how he should be laid to rest still unresolved.

Ngcukaitobi says, “on page 187, what we know about Lungu’s own wishes appears at page 187, paragraph 3.34 of the affidavit. He did not want the current President of Zambia, Hichilema, to have anything to do with his body or his funeral. He told his confidant, Dr. Sachana, who is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University, that he does not wish for Hichilema to have any role in his funeral. That’s largely because by the time Lungu came to SA, there were deep-seated political and personal problems between him and the current government of Zambia”.

He further says. “We also know that the wishes of the widow, Esther Lungu, my client, and the wishes of the children and the immediate family are that Hichilema of Zambia should have nothing to do with the body. We also know that the family does not want to be dictated to by the Zambian government about where the body ought to be buried. If they elect to bury the body in SA, which is what they intended to do on June 17, 2025, they do not want the Zambian government to interfere with that decision”.

“If they elect to bury the body in Zambia, they also want that decision to be made by them. So the problem with the high court’s decision, the departure problem with the high court’s decision, was that it did not adjudicate the constitutional rights that were pleaded by the family and even its approach to the foreign law discussion was mistaken because it did not do what this court recently held in the MTN case, which is you proceed from the premise of the SA constitution. and we know this was pleaded expressly from page 170 of the pleadings at paragraph 2.3.1,” he adds.

–SABC–