Hope rises on financial crimes court

Ministry of Justice says financial crimes cases will now be concluded with speed following the full operationalisation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Court.

This comes against a public perception that government is not dedicated to the fight against corruption as cases have been dragging for years when in actual sense, the courts are o v e r whelmed w i t h different cases apart from corruption cases which result in the cases taking too long to conclude.

In a written response, Ministry of Justice public relations officer, Frank Namangale, said the development will also help reduce the workload in the traditional High Court.

He said: “The Economic and Financial Crimes Court is significant because it will help to have cases of that nature heard with speed, and in the process also reducing the workload in the traditional High Court.

“A good example of how effective this court is is the Vice-President Saulos Chilima’s corruption case, which was moved to this court and is being heard with speed.”

In May 2022 , Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Titus Mvalo disclosed that the Government would establish a special court that will handle corruption – related matters in the country which usually take decades to conclude.

Mvalo had also admitted delays in concluding financial crimes cases which he said have been due to having the same court also trying other corruption cases, creating so much work for judges.

He said: “There is too much workload on judges. We want to have judges that would be dealing with this and that will bring a quicker way of disposing these cases. They will have no other work, except for these cases.”

On April 25 2023, Chief Justice RizineMzikamanda issued Practice Directions (steps) on handling cases at the Economic and Financial Crimes Court to accelerate disposal of financial crimes matters.

The step to be observed by all Divisions of the High Court, among others, stated that judges would only be allowed to continue handling a case if it has reached trial or substantive hearing stage.

The directions further stated that all new financial crimes matters handled by the High Court and filed after the Courts (Amendment) Act No 36 of 2022 on November 18 2022, shall be heard, tried, determined and disposed of by the Financial Crimes Division of the High Court.

The steps were in line with Section 6A (F) as read with Section 2 of the Courts Act.

At that time, the Anti- Corruption Bureau (ACB) had expressed hope that special crimes court may help in the management and expeditious disposal of the financial crimes.

Said ACB spokesperson EgriottaNdala: “As it is now, there are several cases that were in the other divisions of the High Court that have been transferred to the Financial Crimes Court.”

A 2019 assessment by the FIA revealed that Malawi lost $7.4 million to illegal foreign exchange externalisation in 11 months.

In October 2020, the Uni ted Nat ions Conference on Trade and Development said Malawi loses five percent of its total wealth annually to illicit financial flows. This, based on the findings, means that for every K100 generated in the country, K5 is lost to movements of money and assets across borders, which are illegal in source, transfer or use, leaving the country with K95 of its hard-earned money.