The Zambian penal code, section 43, foresees that the death penalty...

The Zambian Penal Code, section 43, states that the death penalty shall be enforced in cases regarding high treason, murder and armed robbery.
Zambia has not executed anyone since 1997, owing to a presidential moratorium on executions that has been upheld by three consecutive heads of State, Levy Mwanawasa, Rupiah Banda, and Michael Sata, who each personally opposed the death penalty.
President Mwanawasa, a Christian Baptist of abolitionist leanings, from his election in 2001 until his death in August 2008, refused to sign orders of execution, commuting hundreds of death sentences. “People can’t be sent to the butcher like they were chickens, and as long as I’m President, I will not sign any orders of execution. I don’t want to be the executioner’s boss,” Mwanawasa said.
His successor, Rupiah Bwezani Banda, also said that he would not sign a death warrant for any condemned inmate despite the death sentence still being enshrined in the Constitution. Banda, who was Deputy President of Zambia under President Mwanawasa from 2006 until the latter’s death in 2008, said he would follow the footsteps of his predecessor. In fact, President Banda commuted death sentences of more than a hundred prisoners during his tenure, which ended in September 2011, when opposition leader Michael Sata defeated him in the presidential elections of 20 September 2011.
Also President Michael Sata followed the policy of his predecessors. In May 2013, he pardoned 113 death row inmates who had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment. On 25 December 2013, President Sata, in a Christmas gesture, spared 10 other prisoners from the hangman’s noose by commuting their death sentences to life. Following the death of President Michael Sata in October 2014, Edgar Lungu was sworn in as new President in January 2015.
On 25 May 2015, President Lungu pardoned and released 177 prisoners in commemoration of the Africa Freedom Day. The President also commuted sentences of 54 prisoners who were serving death sentences to life imprisonment while 41 inmates initially sentenced to life imprisonment had their sentences reduced to 25 years. This was the first time in the history of Zambia to have some inmates from Mukobeko Maximum Prison considered for release during the commemoration of Africa Freedom Day.
On 16 July 2015, all prisoners awaiting death by hanging were removed from death row at Mukobeko Maximum Security Prison. President Lungu commuted all the death sentences of 332 prisoners to life imprisonment to ease maximum security prison congestion. During a visit to Mukobeko prison, Lungu said it was unacceptable for a prison with a capacity of 51 inmates to house hundreds. “It goes without saying that this is an affront to basic human dignity apart from the health and sanitation challenges that it has created,” Lungu said. The Zambian leader further said his administration was committed to improving the situation in the country’s prisons, which were built before Zambia attained independence in 1964, with a capacity to accommodate only 8,200 inmates nationally. Currently, there are about 19,000 inmates in the country’s prisons, a situation that has caused congestion.
As of 24 August 2015, there were only three male inmates on death row at Mukobeko Prison, according to the Zambia Prisons Service (ZPS). On 18 April 2013, the National Constitution Convention voted to retain the death sentence, which is in clause (3) of Article 28 of the First Draft Constitution. When the clause was first put to a vote on 16 April, delegates reached a deadlock and pushed it to a secret ballot, where 177 delegates voted for its retention while 138 rejected it. On 13 April, the Bill of Rights thematic group at the National Constitution Convention had rejected Article 28 on the controversial death penalty provision in the draft Constitution. Article 28 (3) of the First Draft Constitution states that, “A person may be deprived of life if that person has been convicted of a capital offence and sentenced to death.”
Since 1964, when Zambia gained its independence, 53 people have been executed by hanging. The last execution occurred in January of 1997, when ex-President Frederick Chiluba authorized the hanging of 8 detainees on the same day.
In 2015, at least seven death sentences were imposed, all for murder.

United Nations
On 30 October 2012, Zambia was reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council. On 14 March 2013, in its response to the recommendations received, Zambia rejected recommendations that would interfere with the ongoing process of constitutional review, and those included the abolition of the death penalty. Musa Mwene, Solicitor General of Zambia, said the final draft constitution would be ready by June 2013 after which it would be subject to the approval by the people of Zambia.
In December 2014, Zambia abstained from the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.