Govt risks costly lawsuits

The ongoing Judiciary staff strike may cost taxpayers millions of kwacha should suspects detained longer than constitutionally allowed decide to sue, a Lilongwe-based lawyer has cautioned.

Lawyer Wapona Kita said on Sunday there is a risk of government, through the Attorney General, being sued by suspects who have been kept longer than the constitutionally-provided 48 hours—which, he said, should jolt Capital Hill into action.

Observed Kita: “The Attorney General could be sued for compensation more especially if those detained longer than provided are found not to have any case. The stalemate should end now and not tomorrow as it will be costly to everybody in the end.

“The bad side of it is that police are supposed to grant bail on minor cases only. The stalemate is the effect of the strike and it is in a way contributing to violation of the Constitution which gives a suspect the right to be brought to court within 48 hours; but police are helpless in [this] situation.”

The acting national coordinator for Malawi’s Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), the Reverend MacDonald Sembereka, has meanwhile backed the police, advising them to continue giving bail after assessing the situation.

Sembereka on Sunday further said police have no option but to grant bail to almost everyone as nobody knows when the strike will end and it cannot be wise to punish people without a formal court process.

Said Sembereka: “From a human rights perspective, police need to be granting bail to these people. That’s the best option than allowing people to languish in detention for too long. Those entrusted with finding solutions…need to do that as a matter of urgency.”

Police have said they are relying on giving own bail to minor cases, but resort to “peculiar arrangements” of detaining suspects in other crimes without formal court approval.

National police spokesperson Dave Chingwalu said close to one thousand people are arrested throughout the country’s 28 districts each day, but some require courts to formally remand them or charge them and grant them bail.

“It has been quite difficult. We are giving bail to most of them that we are empowered to do so, but for others it is quite difficult. We just go and get the signature of the magistrate to remand them but that is not formal. We are in a difficult position to follow the law,” said Chingwalu.

Mobile phones for the Attorney General, the Chief Justice, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and the Solicitor General went unanswered or could not be reached.

The Judiciary staff sit-in has brought the whole justice system to a grinding halt and no solution has been charted yet, resulting in most protesters resorting to prayers, sports and idleness at the work places.

The employees are demanding the implementation of their new conditions of service and perks agreed upon in 2006, which were also set for revision in 2009—yet nothing has moved so far.

Meanwhile, among the high profile police bails granted this weekend are two for Lilongwe-based businesspeople Ashraf Abdullah El Alli and Habib Zahir who were arrested on Friday at Kamuzu International Airport for trying to externalise $184 600 (about K30 million).