Malawi Legal Aid Bureau continues to grapple with a growing backlog of active cases now hovering around 28 000, it has emerged.
The caseload comes against the background of the bureau having only 48 licensed lawyers across its 22 offices nationwide, a number that does not tally with the demand to handle the matters.
The bureau’s newly hired director general Chimwemwe Chithope-Mwale said in a written interview last week that the figure entails that on average one legal practitioner is handling over 550 cases.
Still not enough. | Nation
“We need at least double the current number [of lawyers] to serve more clients and serve them better,” he said.
Out of the 28 000 cases, the bureau has 18 692 civil cases and 10 131 criminal cases of citizens seeking justice under its legal representation.
However, the struggle continues despite government increasing funding allocation by 300 percent to recruit and promote 38 officers to strengthen the workforce.
“We have managed to successfully lobby the government for more funding, resulting in an increment by over 300 percent, from K801 million to K2.7 billion per annum,” said Chithope-Mwale.
However, he said that the amount was still not enough in reality.
Reacting to the development, Women Lawyers Association (WLA) president Yankho Mwandidya said her organisation recognises the importance of pro bono legal services as being essential in fulfilling its mandate and has a memorandum of understanding with the bureau as a means of achieving the same.
Human Rights Defenders Coalition chairperson Gift Trapence, in a separate interview, described the development as a crisis to access justice for poor Malawians.
He said: “This entails significant barriers that prevent individuals from effectively using the legal system to address their grievances and enforce their rights through affordable legal services in Malawi.
“Court hearings could be delayed for months or even years due to fewer lawyers representing poor Malawians seeking legal representation.”
