STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBA 3.3 Political and Legal environment The political and legal landscape concerning the media in the first quarter has been largely a continuation of the 2016 sagas that were arguably the worst in recent history of the media in Zambia and certainly the worst since Zambia’s return to liberal multiparty democracy by all accounts. The quarter recorded a significant number of both legal cases and political manoeuvres targeting especially private media organisations and journalists. Perhaps top on the list was the case of ZNBC vs GOTv. In this case, GOTv, which is a subsidiary of MultiChoice sued ZNBC and TopStar over the alleged blocking of some free to air channels carried by it. GOTv had asked the High Court to restrain ZNBC from disconnecting their services and from continuing to encrypt the signal transmitted by free-to-air content providers. GOTv further asked the Court to declare the operation of public signal distribution network by TopStar illegal and unlawful. In a statement filed in the principal registry, GOTv, which also cited TopSTar Communications Limited, submitted that ZNBC was a shareholder in GOTv and that the remaining shares were being held by MultiChoice Africa Limited, a company incorporated in Mauritius. “The plaintiff will aver that in December 2016, ZNBC and TopStar Communications, in the presence of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services officials engaged the free-to-air content providers with a view of encrypting their broadcasting signals and thereby removing the free-to-air services from the plaintiff’s digital terrestrial television platform,” read the claim in partxii Another case of legal interest is one where Post Newspaper proprietor Fred M’membe took judge Sunday Nkonde to the Judicial Complaints Commission for alleged gross misconduct in the Post liquidation matter. M’membe had earlier written to the Chief Justice and judge-in-charge of the commercial court asking that judge Nkonde stops presiding over the matter between Post Newspapers Limited and Andrew Chiwenda and others due to his perceived conflict of interest. In his letter to the Judicial Complaints Commission (JCC) dated February 10, the M’membe stated that it was gross misconduct for judge Nkonde to sit to determine a matter involving a company he tried to destroy a mere five years ago. He stated that in spite of not having been eligible to hear the Post matter, judge Nkonde had committed a number of grave due process and procedural irregularities in the current case before him, proving his animosity and bad faith towards The Post. “Judge Nkonde allowed Mr [Lewis] Mosho, the provisional liquidator to then appoint his firm, Messrs. Lewis Nathan Advocates (himself) and Messrs. Palan & George Advocates to replace 14 | P a g e