Cdedi drums support for land disputes court
Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (Cdedi) has urged the Law Commission and Malawi Law Society (MLS) to support calls to set up an independent court to settle land disputes.
The country’s civil rights group has also challenged government and other stakeholders on land matters to swiftly move in and tame the land crisis, which it claims is threatening peace and stability.
In a statement issued yesterday, Cdedi observes that the general populace has lost trust in public institutions dealing with land-related matters such as Ministry of Lands, Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC), Malawi Police Service (MPS) and district councils for being seen as favouring foreign nationals and the elite in land justice administration.
The organisation says the independent court should be equivalent to the High Court’s Commercial Division and specifically handle land cases where the majority poor feel they were short-changed.
The call comes amid land wrangles at Area 44 in Lilongwe where a group of Malawians calling themselves ‘concerned citizens’ are demanding custody of their ancestral land they allege was dubiously sold to foreign nationals without compensating them.
Cdedi observes until recently that land crisis was believed to be an issue endemic to the tea-growing districts of Mulanje, Thyolo and Nkhata Bay but has now spread across the country.
The organisation cites the recent vigil at the High Court in Lilongwe where a family was praying for justice to be served over a farm it claims it owns in Mchinji.
“Millions of landless citizens are living like half human beings while plenty of land lies idle elsewhere. Worse still, some are serving jail terms while others are struggling to pay fines over land-related cases and many others have had their land cases stalled for ages,” reads the statement signed by Cdedi executive director Sylvester Namiwa.
Land law expert Ahmed Mussa concurred with Cdedi that setting up an independent division at the High Court would achieve effectiveness in handling land matters as opposed to having the general division of the High Court dealing with them.
“So the way to go would be to amend Section 6 (A) of the Courts Act and create a division specifically for land matters like the way we have divisions for revenue matters, criminal matters, commercial matters etc.
“We can lobby for the amendment and include a land division. This will take some weight off the civil division and achieve effectiveness and speed in dealing with land matters as there will be a specific division of the High Court with judges seized with such matters,” observed Mussa.
