BLOEMFONTEIN – The late Zambian president Edgar Lungu will be buried in South Africa following its Supreme Court of Appeal’s decision on the matter today.
The court sitting in Bloemfontein set aside a high court order to have the remains of Lungu repatriated to his home country. It ends a 10-month stall of his burial since his death in June 2025 in what has surfaced as a long-standing feud within the Zambian presidency between Lungu and his successor, President Hakainde Hichilema.
Lungu passed away on 5 June 2025 at a hospital in Pretoria, South Africa. The Zambian government and the Lungu family have been in and out of court with the government prepared to do a state funeral. 
The Lungu family wishes to grant the deceased’s ultimate wish, which is to be buried in South Africa rather than Zambia. They filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, challenging a verdict that permitted the Zambian government to repatriate his body.
The Zambian government maintained that it wanted a state burial for Lungu in Lusaka.
The deceased last visited His Majesty King Mswati II of the Kingdom of Eswatini in 2018 on a state visit as the then head of state, strengthening diplomatic ties between the two countries, where the king presented him with a plot of land as a gift. A year before that, he attended Eswatini’s annual reed dance.
On Tuesday 23 June 2026, the Supreme Court of Appeal afforded the appellants, former First Lady Esther Lungu, members of the Lungu family, and family spokesperson Makebi Zulu, the legal authority to determine how and where to bury the deceased.
By doing so, the 2025 Gauteng High Court judgement granting the Zambian government the order to repatriate Lungu’s body was overruled.
The majority judgement of the Supreme Court of Appeals by Justice R.M. Keightley held that the constitution of South Africa afforded the protections for dignity, privacy and family autonomy, together with common law principles that the next of kin has a right to make those decisions when he/she has the family support.
They found that the Zambian government did not establish any legal basis for opposing the Lungu family’s wishes. It found no persuasive evidence that Zambian law, custom, or official protocol gave the state the authority to decide a deceased former president’s burial arrangements against the desires of his family.
There was insufficient expert evidence to support Zambia’s stance that former heads of state must be buried according to specific state protocols or traditions.
Moreover, the argument that a binding agreement had been reached with the Lungu family to repatriate Lungu’s remains was rejected.
“In the absence of proof of such an agreement, the family’s constitutional rights to dignity, privacy, and family autonomy prevail.
“The appeal is upheld with costs, including the costs of two counsel where so employed. The order of the high court is set aside and is replaced by the following order: The application is dismissed with costs, including those of two attorneys who were so employed,” Keightley ruled.
