A bitter, cross-border legal war that has pitted a grieving family against a sovereign state reaches another critical juncture on Thursday, as the family of Zambia’s late former President Edgar Lungu and the Zambian government are set to face off once again in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria. The hearing, scheduled for 10:00 AM before Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela, marks the latest twist in a macabre and emotionally charged dispute over the final resting place of the former leader, whose remains have become an unlikely battleground for questions of succession, loyalty, and the limits of state power.
The courtroom, filled with the hushed whispers of legal practitioners, diplomatic observers, and family members who have made the nearly 1,200-kilometer journey from Lusaka, will witness arguments that stretch far beyond property or contracts. At the heart of the matter lies a simple yet agonizing question: who gets to decide where Edgar Lungu’s body lies—the family that loved him, or the state that once feared him?
A Dispute That Refuses to Die
Edgar Chagwa Lungu, who served as Zambia’s sixth president from 2015 to 2021, passed away on January 12, 2026, at a private hospital in Johannesburg, where he had been receiving treatment for an undisclosed chronic illness. He was 69 years old. His death, while expected by those close to him, nonetheless sent shockwaves through Zambia’s political landscape. Lungu had remained a polarizing figure in retirement—revered by his Patriotic Front (PF) loyalists as a champion of the poor, but reviled by opponents who accused him of authoritarian tendencies and economic mismanagement.
What followed his death, however, has been anything but conventional. Rather than a period of national mourning and dignified burial, Zambians have witnessed an undignified tug-of-war played out in two countries, three courts, and countless press conferences.
The Zambian government, led by President Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND), has insisted that Lungu, as a former head of state, is entitled to a state funeral and burial at the National Heroes’ Acre in Lusaka—a site reserved for figures deemed to have made exceptional contributions to the nation. However, the government has also attached conditions: the funeral must be conducted according to state protocol, with no political rallies or PF party symbols, and the family must sign an undertaking not to use the burial as a platform for political mobilization.
The Lungu family, led by his widow, Mrs. Esther Lungu, and their five children, has rejected these conditions. They argue that the state’s terms are a deliberate attempt to “erase” the former president’s political identity and to deny him the burial he would have wanted. Instead, the family has proposed a private burial at the family’s farm in the Chipata district of Eastern Province, far from the political spotlight of the capital.
“They want to bury him like a criminal, not a president,” Mrs. Lungu said in a tearful statement released through the family’s legal representatives last week. “My husband served this nation for six years. He may not have been perfect, but he loved Zambia. Now, the same people who called him a dictator want to control his body? They want to use his funeral to send a message? No. Edgar will rest where his heart always was: on the land, among the people, away from the politics that killed him.”
The South African Connection
The involvement of a South African court in what is fundamentally a Zambian domestic dispute has raised eyebrows on both sides of the Limpopo. The Lungu family’s legal team, led by prominent Pretoria-based advocate Paul Kennedy SC, argues that because the former president died on South African soil and his remains are currently held at a private mortuary in Johannesburg (pending court orders), South African courts have jurisdiction over the disposition of his body.
In January, the family obtained an urgent interdict from the Gauteng High Court preventing the Zambian government from repatriating Lungu’s remains until the dispute over burial conditions could be resolved. The Zambian government, represented by South African state attorneys acting on behalf of the Zambian High Commission, has challenged this interdict, arguing that it constitutes an unlawful interference in Zambia’s sovereign affairs.
“The remains of a former head of state are not private property,” read the Zambian government’s founding affidavit, signed by Zambia’s Attorney General, Mulilo Kabesha. “They are imbued with national significance. The Republic of Zambia has both the right and the duty to ensure that President Lungu receives the honours befitting his office. A private burial, away from the gaze of the nation, would be an insult to his legacy and to the Zambian people who elected him twice.”
Thursday’s hearing is technically a return date for the interdict, with the Zambian government asking the court to discharge the order and allow repatriation to proceed immediately. The Lungu family, however, is seeking to make the interdict permanent, pending a full trial on the merits of their claim that the government’s conditions are unconscionable.
Political Fault Lines
To understand the intensity of the dispute, one must understand the toxic relationship between Lungu and his successor, President Hichilema. The 2021 Zambian election was one of the most bitterly contested in the nation’s history. Hichilema, a wealthy economist and opposition leader who had been arrested multiple times under Lungu’s presidency, defeated Lungu by a landslide margin of nearly 60% to 39%. Lungu initially accepted the results but later claimed, without evidence, that the election had been stolen—a claim that his supporters continue to repeat.
Since taking office, Hichilema has launched a series of anti-corruption investigations into officials who served under Lungu, including the former president’s children and close associates. Several have been arrested, though none have yet been convicted. Critics accuse Hichilema of political persecution; his supporters say he is simply cleaning up the mess left behind.
“The fight over Edgar Lungu’s body is a proxy for the fight over his legacy,” said Dr. Chisanga Mwansa, a Zambian political analyst based in Johannesburg. “If the state buries him at Heroes’ Acre with full honours, that is a tacit acknowledgment that his presidency was legitimate and respectable. If he is buried privately, almost in secret, that sends a message: ‘You are not a hero. You are a footnote.’ Both sides understand this. That is why neither will back down.”
The Patriotic Front, still Zambia’s largest opposition party, has thrown its weight behind the Lungu family. Party spokesperson Emmanuel Mwamba has accused the Hichilema government of “state-sponsored necropolitics”—using a dead man’s body to settle political scores. “Edgar Lungu is more dangerous to them in death than he ever was in life,” Mwamba said in a fiery address to PF supporters in Lusaka last week. “Because his body, properly buried, becomes a rallying point. They know this. That is why they want to control it. We will not allow it.”
The Human Cost
While lawyers argue over jurisdiction and dignitaries haggle over protocol, the Lungu family has endured a cruel purgatory. The former president’s remains have been held in cold storage for nearly four months, embalmed and waiting. Traditional Zambian burial customs, which emphasize the importance of interring the deceased as soon as possible after death to allow the spirit to transition to the ancestral realm, have been repeatedly violated.
“It is a torture,” said one family member, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Every day that passes without a burial, we are delayed in our grieving. We cannot hold the final ceremonies. We cannot feed the mourners. We cannot perform the rituals. The government is using time as a weapon. They know that eventually, we will break.”
Photographs that have emerged from the family’s compound in Lusaka show stacks of funeral chairs, unopened catering supplies, and a tent that has been erected and disassembled multiple times. Neighbors say they hear Mrs. Lungu crying some nights—a sound that has become a grim fixture of the neighborhood.
A small group of PF supporters has maintained a vigil outside the Zambian High Commission in Pretoria since February, holding posters demanding “Justice for Lungu” and “Let Him Rest.” Some have been there for so long that they have erected makeshift shelters. On Wednesday night, they held a candlelit prayer session ahead of Thursday’s court hearing, singing hymns in Bemba and Nyanja.
The Legal Arguments
Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, legal experts have been divided on the likely outcome. South African courts have generally been reluctant to interfere in the internal affairs of foreign states, particularly where sensitive issues of national symbolism are concerned. However, the courts have also consistently affirmed that the disposition of a deceased person’s remains is, in the first instance, a matter for the family.
“This is a classic collision between customary law—which says family decides—and state protocol—which says the state has an interest,” explained Adv. Nthabiseng Mofokeng, a Pretoria-based expert in international private law not involved in the case. “The South African court has to navigate this without causing a diplomatic incident with a neighbouring state. That is a very narrow tightrope.”
The Zambian government has also raised a preliminary point: that the Gauteng High Court lacks jurisdiction because the Zambian government, as a foreign sovereign, enjoys diplomatic immunity from suit in South African courts. The Lungu family’s legal team counters that immunity does not extend to purely private or commercial acts—and that the handling of a deceased person’s remains falls outside the scope of sovereign immunity.
Judge Maumela, known for his careful and sometimes deliberately slow approach to complex matters, is expected to hear arguments on the jurisdictional question first. If he finds that the court does have jurisdiction, the case will proceed to the merits. If not, the interdict will likely be discharged, and the Zambian government will be free to repatriate Lungu’s remains immediately—potentially as early as this weekend.
Regional Implications
The case has drawn quiet attention from other Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states, several of which have faced similar disputes between former leaders’ families and incumbent governments. In Malawi, the family of former President Bingu wa Mutharika fought a lengthy court battle with the government over burial location; in Zimbabwe, disputes over the gravesites of liberation war heroes have occasionally turned violent.
“There is an unwritten rule in African politics: you do not dishonour your predecessors, even if you despised them, because one day you too will be a predecessor,” said Prof. Lumumba Mwale, a historian at the University of Zambia. “What is happening in the Lungu case is breaking that rule. And that has consequences. It tells every future former president: you may not be safe even in death. That is a dangerous precedent.”
Already, there are whispers in Lusaka that the Lungu family is considering a new legal strategy: an application to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Arusha, Tanzania, arguing that the Zambian government’s refusal to respect the family’s burial wishes constitutes cruel and degrading treatment. Such a move would escalate the dispute to continental level, embarrassing Zambia on the international stage.
Waiting for Judgment
As the sun rose over the Palace of Justice in Pretoria on Thursday morning, a modest crowd had already gathered outside the stately building. They were a mix of Lungu family supporters in PF yellow scarves, curious onlookers, and a smaller contingent of Zambian government backers holding signs reading “One Zambia, One Nation, One Burial.”
Mrs. Esther Lungu arrived shortly before 9:30 AM, escorted by two of her sons. She wore black, as she has every day since January. Her face was immobile, but her hands trembled as she clutched a small photograph of her late husband. She did not speak to reporters, though she paused briefly to look up at the court building—the same building where, four months ago, she had secured her first legal victory.
Inside, the courtroom filled rapidly. Legal teams took their seats at the long oak tables. Diplomatic observers from the Zambian High Commission sat in the front row, alongside representatives from the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO). The public gallery was packed to capacity, with latecomers forced to watch proceedings on a monitor in an overflow room.
At exactly 10:00 AM, the court orderly called for silence. The door to the judge’s chambers opened. Judge Maumela, robed in black and red, entered and took his seat. He adjusted his glasses, looked out over the courtroom, and spoke the words that would set the stage for yet another act in a tragedy that has already run far too long.
“Mr. Kennedy, for the applicants. Mr. de Vries, for the respondent. I have read your heads of argument. I have considered the papers. But I have questions—many questions. Let us begin.”
And so, the battle for Edgar Lungu’s body continued. Outside, the Zambian flag flew at half-mast in a quiet courtyard, waiting for a resolution that no court may truly be able to deliver. Somewhere in a mortuary in Johannesburg, sealed in a refrigerated drawer, a former president waited—neither buried nor honored, neither forgotten nor laid to rest. A man trapped between worlds, claimed by two nations, owned by neither.
The court rose. The lawyers shuffled papers. Mrs. Lungu sat perfectly still, her eyes fixed on the judge, as if trying to read her husband’s fate in the lines of his face. It was a long day ahead. And for the Lungu family, the longest wait was still not over.
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