Heat prompts court to adjust dress code

The prevailing high temperatures on Wednesday prompted the Constitutional Court sitting in Lilongwe to throw away traditional wigs and black gowns to create a comfortable working environment.

The wigs and gowns donned by lawyers are part of an inherited tradition from former colonial master Britain.

However, in recent years, some former British colonies have begun dropping the tradition.

Yesterday’s gesture was a rare case in Malawi for proceedings in an open court to have judges and lawyers without the attires.

When the court reconvened to hear the petition to nullify presidential elections results for the May 21 Tripartite Elections as filed by UTM Party president Saulos Chilima (first petitioner) and Malawi Congress Party president Lazarus Chakwera (second petitioner), there was a tense battle between Attorney General (AG) Kalekeni Kaphale representing the second respondent Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and Chakwera’s fourth witness.

So heated was the exchange that at one point a member of the five-judge panel suggested that Kaphale should pause and take a glass of water to cool down.

Kaphale himself, apparently sarcastically, felt pity for his ‘rival’ in the witness box, Anthony Bendulo. He asked the judges for an early break after noting the frequency Chakwera’s witness was consuming water.

However, Bendulo, in the same manner he had denied every attempt by Kaphale to discredit his testimony as weak, inaccurate and not enough to suggest any rigging, rejected the AG’s offer.

In his testimony, Bendulo narrated how the elections were manipulated through use of Tippex, other manual alterations and duplicate or fake result sheets.

But Kaphale said the assertions were not backed by concrete evidence to suggest they were more widespread or the alterations were not based on genuine need to correct arithmetic mistakes. He argued that the lack of statements from MCP monitors made the party’s case weaker.

Said Kaphale: “It would be difficult to believe you because you did not bring the results of the [MCP] parallel voter tabulation. We have nothing to believe you.”

But the witness bellowed: “It’s not true. We all should be relying on MEC. There was supposed to be an audit trail from the system of MEC. We are not here to say that Hon Chakwera won because we don’t have the data from MEC to compare. We didn’t get the copies from monitors because we were not given the copies by the second respondent (MEC).”

To Kaphale’s question that the problem emanated from the refusal by the party to call its monitors, Bendulo responded: “No! We were denied access. It was no need to get back to the monitors… Your observation is totally wrong.”

Here, Judge Dingiswayo Madise intervened asking the AG to pause to allow the translator translate both questions and answers.

Hearing continues today.

Chilima and Chakwera want the presidential elections results nullified and order a re-run.

Besides Madise, other judges on the panel are Healey Potani, Redson Kapindu, Ivy Kamanga and Mike Tembo.