The Malawi Law Commission (MLC) has emphasized the need for judicial system in the country to have a comprehensive legislation on sentencing guidelines in a bid to guide courts exercising their rulings discretion in analogous circumstances for achieving transparency and consistency.
The commission is in the country wide consultation soliciting views from various stakeholders including judicial officers, donor communities, civil society organizations, and media among others towards the development of the law on sentencing guidelines.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Maravi Post after holding the national consultative conference this week in the capital Lilongwe, Dr.Jane Ansah, Justice of Appeal noted with concern over disproportionate and inconsistent sentences which have been handed down in criminal cases due to absence of sentencing guidelines law.
Dr.Ansah observed that there have been disparities of sentences passed over similar cases handled by different judicial officers which eventually the public questions the credibility of the country’s legal system to whose interest it serves.
“The sentence pronounced by the court is the most visible aspect of the response of the criminal justice system to an offender. As such, sentencing is the one area which has led some section of our society to view courts or the criminal justice system in general with skepticism as sometimes out rightly absurd disproportionate and inconsistency sentences have been handed down in criminal cases.
“While the legally relevant facts can be witnessed by every person during trial, the prescriptions of the law regarding sentencing aren’t easily accessible to judicial officers, prosecutors, counsel and more
especially the general public. As part of efforts to address the challenge, the judiciary introduced sentencing guidelines for magistrates courts in 2007 which are administrative and only target
magistrates hence the need for legislation to cater all stakeholders in the criminal justice system to regulate the formulation of sentencing guideline when the need arises”, observes Dr.Ansah.
With funding from European Union (EU)-Democratic Governance Programme since in 2013, Dr. Ansah disclosed that a special law commission was empaneled to develop legislation on sentencing guidelines through consultative process to enable the commission coming up with best possible legislation to guide all stakeholders in sentencing matters urging parliament to expedite enactment of the legislation once all
paper work are done.
Echoing on the same, Justice Edward Twea, Chairperson for the Special Law Commission on the development of legislation on sentencing guidelines assured the general public of thorough consultation to get best practices which could suit the country’s judicial system saying his team was composed of commissioners with knowledge, expertise and experience in criminal justice matters who are greatly enriched the
process.