Chief Justice Rizine Mzikamanda has revealed that 81 percent of the September 16 2025 electoral cases have been concluded, with those in the Supreme Court of Appeal also set to be concluded.
Mzikamanda said this yesterday in Lilongwe when he presided over the presentation of awards to outstanding judicial officers and certificates to participants to a five-day court interpretation training for judicial research officers, court reporters and clerks which started on Monday, with financial support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
He said: “We only have 20 outstanding electoral cases, but we are sure that within the shortest possible time, they will be concluded because majority of them are in judgement stage. Some of them would also have gone on appeal and the appeal court is also putting a programme together to ensure that they are sped up.”
The Chief Justice also said the Judiciary has put in place a strategic plan to deal with backlog and delay of cases in the country’s courts.
“The issue of backlog and delay is long and outstanding and I can say that we can only minimise backlog and delay. We cannot completely do away with backlog and delay,” he said.
On court interpretation training and awards to outstanding judicial officers, Mzikamanda said the Judiciary came up with the two because it found out that there were challenges in court interpretation based on 2019 electoral case and that there was a need to reward commitment from hard-working judicial officers.
“The awards are al so an encouragement to those who work selflessly. We have assessed that this time courts have done extremely well. For example, within a period of three months, 81 percent of electoral cases have been concluded which is not an easy task and the commitment must be rewarded,” he said.
On his part, UNDP chief technical adviser (Rule of Law) Rowland Cole, thanked Malawi Judiciary for being a reliable partner, over the years.
“Cour t proceedings need efficiency, accuracy and sometimes confidentiality. For that to be achieved, there is need for judicial officers to be able to understand court language so that misinformation is avoided and only accurate information is given to those following court proceedings so that justice is served,” he said.
Representing participants to the training, Alexander Tepeka a senior court clerk at Zomba High Court, said the training has improved his interpretation skills.
“Legal language is not easy to interpret because some words cannot be easily understood by complainants and defenders alike. The training has assisted me on how best I can make such words understandable to those seeking for legal redress at the courts,” he said.
