Court lifts Bisika injunction

The High Court in Blantyre has lifted an injunction it earlier granted former Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) deputy director general Francis Bisika pending determination for judicial review.

But the court has directed that judicial review proceedings should still proceed the normal way.

Bisika obtained the court order to restrain government from dictating Macra on his contract after Macra withdrew his contract barely two weeks after its extraordinary board meeting renewed the same.

In an interview yesterday, lawyer representing Bisika, Chancy Gondwe, said they will follow the guidelines provided by the court in proceeding with the judicial review case and they will not protest the lifting of the injunction.

He said: “We will proceed with the substantive judicial review application as directed by the courts. I do not think we will be going back to the courts on the issue on the injunction because even if we get the injunction, we have had experiences with Macra that they do not comply with court injunctions.”

Efforts to talk to Madalitso Mmeta, the lawyer representing Macra, proved futile as he could not be reached on his mobile phone yesterday.

Macra, through its lawyer, had applied to the court to set aside the order of interlocutory injunction.

In its six-fold grounds, Macra argued that the order of injunction was not applied for by the claimant (Bisika).

In his application, Bisika alleged that Macra renewed his contract of employment effective October 19 2017 through oral communication and that he received his salary and benefits during the tenure of the new renewed contract on October 25 2017.

According to court documents The Nation has seen, Bisika stated that the injunction was properly granted and that the conduct of Macra is fit for judicial review and that before hearing of the judicial review application there should be the injunction that Macra should comply with.

But in his ruling, Judge Mike Tembo pointed out that the injunction was supposed to be applied for separately and not within the judicial review proceedings. n