Law Society to probe court injustice claims

Malawi Law Society (MLS) has appointed a team to investigate alleged injustices at the High Court of Malawi Commercial Division in Lilongwe.

Communication addressed to MLS members shows that the lawyers’ body is asking its membership to provide information on alleged malpractices.

Reads the communication in part: “As members should no doubt be aware, these are weighty matters touching on the integrity and credibility of judicial process. The exercise must balance between constitutional fundamentals of transparency and accountability and the sustained need for an independent Judiciary.

“The special team is, therefore, under a direction to conduct the assignment with the highest sense of professionalism and objectivity guided by each member’s ethical and legal duty to contribute to improving the justice system based on facts that may be established under the exercise.”

The team has been put in place to look into an alleged and unjustified trend at the High Court Commercial Division in Lilongwe where some members of MLS or some category of court users or their perceived proxies take up a case before one of the judges at that registry and the outcome is usually a foregone conclusion in favour of those members’ clients or court users.

MLS also says there is an allegation that the trend appears to have a connection with one or two Justices of Appeal in the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal.

The society further says there are also allegations of improper demands by some court clerks at that registry followed by alleged mismanagement of case files.

MLS president Patrick Mpaka in an interview yesterday confirmed that they have taken a step to investigate the matter.

He said the society needs to verify what is being alleged about the court.

Mpaka said: “We have the duty to contribute to improving the justice system. So, we need to check what is being said about the court.”

Judiciary spokesperson Kondwani Banda said the MLS probe was an in-house matter, as such, he could not comment further.

“Complaints to do with judicial officers are handled by Judicial Service Commission,” he said.

Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament chairperson Peter Dimba yesterday said the allegations at the Commercial Court in Lilongwe form part of the issues that were referred to the committee by lawmakers that it should inquire into the allegations and present a report to the House during the November sitting. He said the committee is mandated by Section 26 (1) of the Legal Education and Legal Practitioners Act to inter alia protect and assist the public in matters ancillary or incidental to the law.