K30 m for murder trials

Malawi Government has allocated K30 million for homicide cases, which, according to Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) have a backlog for over 1 000.

DPP Mary Kachale said in a response to a questionnaire last week that in the 2014/15 financial year, her directorate has budgeted to clear 700 cases and so far, 30 have been tried.

She said in the last financial year, government also set aside K30 million for homicide cases, but that sum was not received, resulting in failure to prosecute homicide cases.

“The directorate is currently putting in place measures, guided by principles promoted by the government under its organisation performance assessment [OPA] programme to ensure it conducts criminal prosecutions efficiently and expeditiously.

“Nevertheless, it needs to be borne in mind that the fruit of such initiatives will be observed over time not immediately,” Kachale said.

She said homicide trials are expensive than ordinary ones because they are conducted in assizes (where the trial must happen where the offence occurred to comply with the principle that ‘justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done’).

“So the court, prosecution and defense are required to move to the district where the cases are held. This requires transport, and allowances for the officers who are attending to the matter. The duration for trials in assize is five days,” she said.

Judiciary sources told Nation on Sunday last week that High Court judges stopped going into the districts for murder trials because the Judiciary cannot afford fuel and other allowances, adding if at all they have to go, they only do so to deliver a verdict, and not hearings.

Instead, the sources said, murder suspects remanded closer to High Court registries such as Chichiri Prison which is closer to Blantyre registry, are privileged because they would easily be taken there for trials.

One of the sources said: “Unfortunately, this funding problem has affected the entire system. We have departments such as the Legal Aid and State Advocate that represent the accused persons and the State respectively; they are failing to fully operate as they should have.”

But Judiciary spokesperson Joseph Chigona, while saying the Judiciary was trying all it could to deal with murder cases, admitted all was not rosy financially.

Chief Commissioner of prisons Kennedy Nkhoma also disclosed earlier that there were 849 murder suspects on remand nationwide.