Chanco law students petition Justice minister

Law students at University of Malawi’s Chancellor College (Chanco) on Friday marched within the campus in Zomba and petitioned Minister of Justice Ephraim Chiume in solidarity with Judiciary support staff currently on industrial action.

A representative of Students Law Society president Roderick Michongwe said the students petitioned the minister through Zomba District Commissioner (DC).

Michongwe said: “We are deeply concerned with the ongoing strike by the Judiciary support staff, now in its third week. As law students, we heavily rely on the Judiciary in our studies. If the Judiciary remain paralysed, we are afraid our future is doomed.

“That aside, we feel sorry for people being detained without a right to apply for bail or be afforded a trial. It is our belief that government should have done better on this matter by seriously engaging the support staff before things went this bad.”

Michongwe said they have appealed to Chiume to move in quickly and resolve the matter, warning it was dangerous to have one arm of government literally paralysed. They also feared police stations were being crowded.

The law students have copied their petition to Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo. The students read out the petition to fellow students before it was dispatched to the DC by a few representatives.

Government this week called the strike illegal and asked the striking staff to call it off, but the staff said the strike was legal and they were not returning to work until their demands are met.

The striking support staff, in a letter addressed to the department of public service management in response to government’s call for them to return to work, said government did not mention any progress made in addressing the substantive demands of the striking staff to implement in full the terms and conditions of service as approved by Parliament in 2006.