By Nenenji Mlangeni
LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The Constitutional Court in Lilongwe on Thursday partially approved an application by the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) for the extension of time to file and serve sworn statements on the disputed presidential elections case.
The court has therefore given the commission five days instead of the 14 days it requested from today including weekends to finalise its exercising of collecting data for the election case.
Reading the ruling, Justice Dingiswayo Madise, said considering that Mec lawyers were disrupted when collecting the information it would be proper to give them the additional five days including weekends.
The court has also ordered Malawi Congress Party President Lazarus Chakwera, to publicly condemn a statement made by the party’s publicity secretary, Maurice Munthali, calling on Mec presiding officers not to grant Mec the required information.
The court says Chakwera must do so within 24 hours.
The Constitutional Court in Lilongwe on Monday reserved it ruling on the wish of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) that asked court to delay documents filing, wants 14 more days in elections case.
The election case will therefore start on July 29 as indicated in the previous ruling.
MEC applied to the Constitutional Court in Lilongwe to delay the pollster legal team filing and serving of defense documents.
The court ordered the MEC defense team to submit its defense documents to the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and UTM lawyers 11 days ago.
In the case, UTM Party president Saulos Chilima and MCP leader Lazarus Chakwera are seeking nullification of the presidential results over alleged irregularities.
MEC declared Mutharika of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) winner of the presidential race in the May 21 Tripartite Elections, with 1 940 709 votes.
He was trailed by Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera with 1 781 740 votes.
