Alliance for Community Action Fact Checking Unit
Claim checked:
Recently appointed Constitutional Court Judge, Martin Musaluke, falsely claimed in his CV submitted to the Parliamentary Select Committee set up to ratify among others, his appointment, that his Masters in International Business Laws Degree, obtained from the University of Cumbria, included an International Human Rights module.
The Alliance for Community Action Fact Checking Unit verified the claims made by the Africa Confidential of 28 January 2018 and quoted by the sections of the Zambian media and public that recently appointed Constitutional Court Judge, Martin Musaluke, deliberately misrepresented his qualifications to parliament in order to meet a constitutional requirement for qualification or experience in international human rights law.
Verification Process
The ACA Fact Checking Unit contacted the University of Cumbria who forwarded the modules included in their International Business Law qualification. These turned out to be as set out on their website, and did not include the International Human rights law module in contention. In further interaction with the university, ACA inquired whether the Masters in International Business Law did offer a module in human rights law as an elective (optional). The ACA was informed that while the module was currently not offered as an elective, it had historically been.
Because the university made it clear that, while happy to give us general information on their qualifications, they could not, under British law, provide any information specific to a student, we contacted Judge Musaluke, requesting him to avail us with his University of Cumbria Master of International Business Law transcript of results, showing the International Human Rights module as set out in his CV presented to Parliament. Judge Musaluke sent us both his degree certificate and transcript showing the International Human Rights Law module as included in his CV
FINDING
The ACA Fact Checking Unit finds that the claim made by Africa Confidential and quoted by sections of the Zambian public and media that Judge Martin Musaluke misrepresented his qualifications to Parliament, to include an International Human rights Law module he did not read for, to be FALSE.
ACA Fact Checking Unit: Building a questioning public.
The ACA Fact checking Unit is part of the EU funded ‘Speak up Zambia Project’ implemented in collaboration with the Freepress Unlimited and the House of consciousness.