{"id":242335,"date":"2026-08-27T08:28:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T06:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/zambia\/zambia-closing-courts-curbs-access-to-justice\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T08:28:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T06:28:53","slug":"zambia-closing-courts-curbs-access-to-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/zambia\/zambia-closing-courts-curbs-access-to-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia: Closing Courts Curbs Access to Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"8\">Johannesburg \u2014 <em>Closing Coincided with Deadline for Challenging Election Results<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"47\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/africa\/zambia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zambian<\/a> authorities suddenly closed and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cgrvjn88rxqo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">cordoned off<\/a> the courts without credible explanation on August 24, 2026, effectively blocking the filing of any legal challenges to the results of the August 13 presidential election, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately allow the courts to reopen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"81\">Zambian police stated that the closures were an <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zambiamonitor.com\/zambian-police-defends-closure-of-courts-as-groups-fault-alleged-attempts-to-frustrate-opposition-leader-mundubile\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">&#8220;intelligence-led and preventive measure,&#8221; without&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202608270058.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Zambia\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/zambia\/\">Zambia<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Johannesburg \u2014 Closing Coincided with Deadline for Challenging Election Results Zambian authorities suddenly closed and cordoned off the courts without credible explanation on August 24, 2026, effectively blocking the filing of any legal challenges to the results of the August 13 presidential election, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately allow the courts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":242336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00690145:e1747b399d4382ecd591e1d0ac7e8341:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[825],"tags":[6450,258,256,6143,8732,21488,6852,257,254,4709,881],"class_list":["post-242335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zambia","tag-access","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-closing","tag-courts","tag-curbs","tag-justice","tag-news","tag-south-africa-today","tag-zambia","tag-zambia-news"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00690145:e1747b399d4382ecd591e1d0ac7e8341:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}