The Pretoria High Court has indefinitely adjourned the hearing of the leave to appeal, where the family had made an application to be heard following their failure to accept the judgement that was passed to allow the Zambian government to repatriate and bury the remains of the late Edgar Lungu in Zambia.

Both the application by the family and the judgement in favour of the government remain active at the Pretoria High Court.

The 8th August judgement that ordered the Lungu family to surrender the remains of the late Zambian President could, however, not be enforced from that day because the respondents quickly filed an online application to commence leave to appeal.

When the date was set for this application for leave to appeal, the family, through their attorneys, informed the court last Friday that they were in progressive talks with the government, with the possibility of resolving the matter outside court.

However, the same Friday, the 15th of August, in the late afternoon, the Lungu family, through their lawyers, filed another application, this time in the Constitutional Court, where they want to be directly heard without the process of commencing leave to appeal.

When the matter came before the panel of judges in the Pretoria High Court today, lawyers informed the court that they are waiting for a response from the Constitutional Court before they can proceed.

The Court then adjourned, leaving the matter open for hearing at any time, contingent on the Constitutional Court's response and outcome.

When the family arranged a burial in South Africa in mid-June, the government of Zambia, through Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha, halted the process through courts, a situation that has brought matters to the status quo thus far.