Sumbuleta wants jury in sexual harassment case

Former Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) director general Aubrey Sumbuleta has asked the High Court of Malawi to have his sexual harassment and abuse of office case heard by a jury.

Sumbuleta, through his lawyer David Kanyenda  made the oral submission in court yesterday when the matter convened to begin  full trial. After hearing the oral submissions, High Court judge Ruth Chinangwa directed the accused to file a written submission.

She further asked the State to explain why it wants the High Court to handle the matter instead of a lower court.  The High Court judge then directed both the State and defence to submit their written responses and submissions by March 1 2023 before hearing of the matter on March 2 2023.

According to the Essential Law Dictionary, a jury is a group of people empowered to make findings of fact and render a verdict for a trial. The judge decides questions of law, including whether particular items of evidence will be presented to the jury. The parties may, however, request a bench trial, where the judge decides issues of fact and law.

In an interview after the court proceedings, Kanyenda said they will wait for the court to make its determination of whether the trial be heard by the jury.

He said: “The trial is supposed to be by jury and not by a judge sitting alone in terms of Section 294 (1) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Code. The judge has directed that we file further submissions on that issue and on the question whether this trial should be undertaken in the High Court and not in the subordinate courts.”

In a separate interview, senior State advocate Mathews Chione said the State was ready to start the trial and was expecting to parade four witnesses yesterday.

“We thought that the trial is commencing today [yesterday] because we thought that all the preliminary objections that were raised were done by April [2022],” he said.

Sumbuleta was arrested after Malawi Human Rights Commission carried out investigations into alleged reports of sexual harassment of female employees at MBC.

Sexual harassment attracts a fine of K1 million and five years imprisonment.