Why the Chief Justice, and Only the Chief Justice, Puts a Zambian President in Office

Why the Chief Justice, and Only the Chief Justice, Puts a Zambian President in Office

MUVI Editorial Team

On Tuesday, 1 September, President Hakainde Hichilema will place his hand on the Bible, or his chosen holy text, and repeat words that will make him, legally and formally, president of Zambia for a second term. Until that moment, however decisively the ballots were counted or however loudly a winner has already been declared, he is not yet, in the eyes of the law, the president. And the person standing opposite him, the one whose voice actually completes the transfer of power, will not be a party official, an electoral commissioner, or even the outgoing head of state. It will be the Chief Justice of Zambia.

THE RULE, AND THE TWIST MOST PEOPLE MISS

Article 105(1) of Zambia's Constitution is unambiguous about who has the authority to swear in a president: "The President-elect shall assume office after being sworn in by the Chief Justice or, in the absence of the Chief Justice, the Deputy Chief Justice." Most Zambians know the first half of that sentence. Far fewer know the second half exists at all, and it is not a hypothetical footnote. It has already been used. When Hichilema himself was first sworn in on 24 August 2021, it was not the substantive Chief Justice who administered his oath. It was Michael Musonda, serving at the time as Acting Chief Justice, standing in during a vacancy at the top of the judiciary. The Constitution's framers built a deliberate contingency into one of the country's most consequential ceremonial moments, and Zambia has already needed it once in living memory.

WHY THE JUDICIARY, AND NOT ANYONE ELSE

The choice is not arbitrary, and it is not unique to Zambia. Nigeria's constitution assigns the identical role to its Chief Justice; Zimbabwe's does the same. The pattern reflects a deliberate design choice found across constitutional democracies that trace their legal heritage to the same Commonwealth tradition: the person administering the presidential oath should represent the branch of government with no stake in who wins. A legislator answers to a party. An electoral commissioner answers to the process that produced the result being certified. The outgoing president has an obvious, sometimes fraught, personal interest in the transition itself. The judiciary, at least in constitutional theory, answers to none of that. Having the country's most senior judicial officer administer the oath is meant to say something specific: that the incoming president's power flows from, and is bound by, the law and the Constitution from the very first second of the presidency, not from the political process that won them the office.

THE CLOCK THAT DECIDES THE DATE

The timing of the ceremony is just as tightly constitutionalised as who conducts it. Article 105(2) sets the swearing-in for "the Tuesday following the seventh day after the date of the declaration of the presidential election results, if no petition has been filed" under Article 103, or the seventh day after the Constitutional Court declares the election valid, if one has. That clause is precisely why this year's 1 September date matters as more than a diary entry, MUVI has reported extensively on the contested days surrounding Zambia's own Article 103 petition window, the nationwide court closure, and the Constitutional Court's confirmation that no petition was ultimately filed. The inauguration date itself is, in effect, a constitutional readout of how that dispute resolved.

THE CEREMONY ITSELF IS ITS OWN LAW

Beyond the Constitution's own text, a dedicated statute, the Transitional Period and Inauguration of President Act of 2016, governs the mechanics: the swearing-in must be a public ceremony held in the capital city, organised by a formally constituted Presidential Inauguration Committee, with the date and venue published by Gazette notice. None of it is left to convention or improvisation. Zambia has scripted, in statute, almost every element of the moment a private citizen becomes head of state, right down to who is legally permitted to say the words that make it official.

So when Hichilema takes his oath this week, watch for the detail almost nobody narrates on the day: the current Chief Justice, Mumba Malila, in office since 2021, is the one constitutionally positioned to administer it, unless, once again, circumstance calls his deputy forward instead. Either way, the words will carry the same legal weight, because in Zambia, the presidency has never actually begun with a victory speech. It begins with a judge.