Don’t use force to resolve Judiciary strike—Chakwera

Leader of opposition in Parliament Lazarus Chakwera has cautioned the Executive against using force to end a four-week strike by Judiciary support staff demanding housing allowance, among other grievances.

Briefing journalists in Lilongwe yesterday, Chakwera, who is Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president, also faulted government over the use of force to resolve the strike by using the Malawi Police Service (MPS) to raid the courts last Friday.

Through the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), government also threatened to withhold salaries of staff involved in the strike.

But Chakwera said Malawi is not a police State where citizens should be intimidated into doing things such as resolving differences by use of force.

He said: “By saying that ‘go to work or else…’ means that government is already using force. This is not about who has more power, but rather finding lasting solutions to the problems raised.

“If the Judiciary support staff indeed go back to work because of that [force], there is a risk that the problem may arise again because it hasn’t been solved in the first place.”

Chakwera also feared that under the circumstances the staff would not be expected to do their work as expected.

He said: “You can have people back in offices, but if they choose not to work, what are we going to do? By the way, this is not a police State that we should be using the police to intimidate people.”

The opposition leader was apparently referring to the police raid on Friday of courts to force the striking staff to resume work.

The Judicial support staff went on strike from July 31, demanding government to give them housing allowances and other benefits.