In a ruling that has sent a shiver of existential confusion through the Zambian legal system, the family of the late Michael Sata, Zambia's former president, has won a High Court battle in London that could determine the final resting place of his earthly vessel. The dispute, which smacks of a Monty Python skit written by the ghost of Charles Dickens, centres on the peripatetic preservation of Sata's remains. For reasons best known to the family, they have been haggling over whether to bury him in his home village or some other hallowed patch of Zambian soil.
The bone of contention, you see, is that the man has been dead since 2014, but his mortal coil has been kept in a state of limbo, neither buried nor cremated, in a morgue in Lusaka. The family, like a fractious jury in a game of Cluedo, have been unable to agree on the where and the how. Enter the British courts, because of course, when in doubt over a corpse, call in the Old Bailey.
The presiding judge, Lady Justice something-or-other, has ruled that a previous Zambian court's decision to release the body to the widow was lawful, citing a 1967 British precedent about the disposal of bodies. I can almost hear Lord Denning's ghost chuckling in his grave at the irony. What does this mean for the great Zambian republic?
It means that the undead ex-president remains in the unquiet company of a deep freeze, while the lawyers bill by the hour. Meanwhile, the Zambian people, who have more pressing concerns like the price of mealie meal and the state of the local clinic, are treated to the spectacle of their late leader's family squabbling over his bones like vultures over a carcass. The court has effectively said, 'Look, just bury the chap, will you?
But do it legally.' And so the precedent has been upheld: in the United Kingdom, you can dictate the fate of a corpse from beyond the grave. Or rather, from the bench.
The lesson here? If you're going to die in Africa, make sure your will is notarised in London. Otherwise, you'll end up like poor Michael Sata, a political footnote with a personal fridge.
