Malawi Election case: Attorney General Kaphale’s final arguments with elements of flop

By LordDenning QB

The Attorney General (AG) Kalekeni Kaphale has failed to find roots in the Laws of Malawi with which to support his argument of defence.

Alternatively, he has shifted his argument to International Treaties related to elections in which he has argued that Malawi is a signatory of.

He has stated that Malawi as a State party to a treaty may not invoke the provisions of its internal laws as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.

MY ARGUMENT

The Attorney General needs to be awake to the fact that Treaties DO NOT override the power of domestic laws where internal affairs are in issue.

Elections are purely internal affairs and supremacy lies on our domestic laws NOT international law(s).

Further to that, the Honourable Attorney General needs to be awake to the popular fact that the country’s Constitution is the supreme law over any oner law.

In fact, in the hierarchy of supremacy of our laws in Malawi, at the very top is the Constitution followed by legislated Statute (Acts of Parliament), then Common Law (which includes international law), etc…al the way down to by-laws.

It is trite that where any law, be it the Statute or Common Law (or indeed the so-called treaties) falls into any conflict with the Constitution, such any other law becomes, abhorred, condemned, trashed and invalidated to the extent of such inconsistency (conflict) and leaves the Constitution with its supremacy unshifted and unscathed.

It is my opinion, therefore, that the Attorney General knew all this and he was simply attempting to take chances in his desperate bid to afford some defence.

This point of his should be dead upon arrival.

…………….Views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of the Publisher or the Editor of Maravi Post.

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