No ‘pity’ for politicians who commit crimes—Minister
Malawi’s Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Samuel Tembenu has warned politicians who commit crimes to expect to face the law fairly and squarely, without hiding behind self-pity claims that such trials are triggered by political persecution.
Tembenu said this in Parliament in Lilongwe on Friday after the National Assembly passed the Courts (Amendment) Bill on Friday.
He was responding to a query by Lilongwe South member of Parliament (MP) Peter Dimba (Malawi Congress Party-MCP) during the Bill’s debate when the legislator said Malawi should stop politicising court cases because that delays the conclusion of the cases and makes them expensive.
The MP expressed worry that the country is emerging as a specialist in dragging to court virtually all former presidents and other senior leaders, noting that ex-president Bakili Muluzi’s K1.6 billion ($2.3 million) corruption and abuse of office case is now dragging to its 11th year. He argued that if former president Bingu wa Mutharika were still alive, he could have also been answering charges, just as immediate-past president Joyce Banda could have been, had she not been “in exile” to escape persecution.
But the MP’s remarks drew points of orders from Tembenu, who said it was wrong for him to comment on the Muluzi case that was in court, while leader of the House George Chaponda disputed that the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government is persecuting People’s Party (PP) president Joyce Banda, who, he said, is free to return home from abroad.
The remarks by Chaponda, who is also Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development and Mulanje South West MP (DPP), drew another point of order from PP leader in the House Uladi Mussa, who endorsed the Joyce Banda persecution charge.
Mussa, who is also Salima South MP (PP), said government is persecuting Joyce Banda partly by not giving her full pension dues, denying her a retirement home and by issuing a warrant of arrest that, he claimed, is awaiting the former first woman president in the country.
Making concluding remarks, as he took in the legislators’ concerns and comments, Tembenu stressed the need for people to let politicians to face the consequences of their criminal activities without regarding that as political persecution.
He said: “When a crime has been committed (by a politician, or anyone else), we should allow the justice system to take its full course.”
The minister added that new prosecutors will soon be employed and improvements are being made to improve people’s access to justice and towards the delivery of justice.
