Bureau weighs in on stripping police of prosecution role
The Legal Aid Bureau has joined calls for creation of an independent prosecution authority, believing it will be more effective in speeding up trials than the police branch.
The bureau’s director Masauko Chamkakala said this in Lilongwe on Friday during the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions’ engagement with players in the justice system involved in homicide cases.
The event centred on finding solutions to ease off a backlog of the cases which are widely blamed for over-crowding in the country’s prisons.
C h a m k a k a l a pinpointed delayed prosecution of cases as among the key contributing factors of backlogs as police prioritise other roles.
“It appears that for the majority of the police prosecutors, their main task in the Police Service is not prosecution. So, they don’t put in much effort as it were.
“So, it means that if there is any other assignment , they would rather do it than prosecution which ends up delaying the cases,” he argued.
On his part, DPP Steven Kayuni indicated that there were already plans to introduce an independent prosecution institution.
“ This has to be approved by Cabinet and the policy holder the ministry of Justice as well.
Discussions are ongoing and these are issues that at an appropriate time the minister would be able to advise on the way forward,” he said.
On a backlog of homicide cases, Kayuni said the meeting has formulated an action plan to resolve the matter.
The participants were drawn from the police, Judiciary and prison authorities. Some of the reasons attributed to delayed homicide cases are delays in hospitals authoring post-mortem reports.
On this Kayuni said: “We will be liaising with our colleagues in the Ministry of Health to see to it that there is an arrangement with investigators that postmortem can be done quickly.”
Paralegal officer Mercy Nyirenda, who presented an update on the status of homicide cases in the Central Region, disclosed that Lilongwebased Maula Prison has 305 homicide suspects.
“Only 58 of those have been committed to the High Court…
The backlog of homicide cases is contributing to overpopulation in prisons,” she said.
