Chief Justice acts on Judiciary injustice claims

Chief Justice Rizine Mzikamanda says his office is acting on complaints from the Malawi Law Society (MLS) and Parliament on concerns of injustice at the High Court of Malawi Commercial Division in Lilongwe.

He said the recent change of leadership and personnel in the division and changes in systems are among some steps being undertaken to deal with the matter.

Speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the opening of Likoma Magistrate’s Court on Thursday, Mzikamanda said he was ‘acting’ within the Judiciary system to deal with the matter.

He said: “We heard what they said as Judiciary and we cannot just sit and watch. We are doing something to solve such issues. We have made some changes to the leadership and moved people to see how we may progress.

“We are also doing other things so that the systems are changed to minimise such issues or even completely eliminate them. I am sure that the institutions that started the process are doing their processes that I cannot control. But within the Judiciary, I am doing something.”

In an internal memorandum dated September 20, Registrar of the High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal Kondwani Banda announced that Mzikamanda had appointed three High Court of Malawi judges to lead three separate High Court divisions.

The changes saw Judge Kenani Manda being moved from judge-in-charge of the High Court Commercial Division, Lilongwe Registry to the same capacity in Blantyre. Manda replaced Judge Michael Mtambo who retired last month.

High Court Judge Chifundo Kachale was moved from judge-in- charge of Lilongwe Criminal Division to replace Manda while Judge Redson Kapindu was appointed judge-in-charge of the newly-established Financial and Economic Crimes Division.

Mzikamanda has also re-assigned judges Violet Chipao and Anneline Kanthambi to the Financial and Economic Crimes Division.

The changes came two days after MLS appointed a team to investigate alleged injustices at the High Court of Malawi Commercial Division in Lilongwe.

MLS in a letter on September 18 asked its members to help provide information on alleged malpractices.

The law society said the team would look into allegations that whenever certain members of the society or some category of court users or their perceived proxies take up a case before one of the judges at Commercial Division, Lilongwe Registry, the outcome is usually a foregone conclusion in favour of those members’ clients or court users and that usually this follows a summary process often in circumstances that may not ordinarily warrant such process.

Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament chairperson Peter Dimba said the allegations at the Commercial Court in Lilongwe, which reached Parliament in a form of a motion, would form part of the issues that were referred to his committee by lawmakers.

The lawmakers asked the committee to inquire into the allegations and present a report to the House during the November sitting, which starts on November 14 to December 16 2022.