Courts are created and designed to help people seek justice. They are also there to interpret the laws of the land. People go to court to seek justice and interpretation of the law on several issues.

Unfortunately, the courts of Malawi are being abused by those who go to seek justice and interpretation to their advantage because they have the money to do so and they are the first to go to court and complain.

This article endeavors to briefly highlight some of the challenges in our judiciary system which is a huge letdown..

Judicial injustice

While seeking justice some people receive injustice either by error or design. Injustice by error can be understood because all humans can err in the process of trying to offer justice.

The main challenge under this discussion is injustice by design. Injustice by design takes place when the plaintiff offers a bribe to the judges or when judges demand to be offered a bribe to offer a calculated judgment.

One of the prominent analysts and writer Rick Dzida observes that- “One prominent example of judicial injustice in Malawi is when the highly touted Constitutional court nullified the 2019 presidential elections while admitting that it found no evidence of any electoral rigging. Electoral irregularities are prevalent in all elections.”

“In addition, even the international observers had already endorsed that 2019 presidential elections were free and fair.”

“Second, the Constitutional court went further to insinuate that the victor of the 2019 presidential elections, Prof Peter Mutharika, did not attain the majority vote when at the time of voting, the High Court had already interpreted that the meaning of the term majority as a simple majority but not an absolute majority. For sure, the Constitutional court would not have applied the case law retrospectively.”

Judicial corruption

Our judiciary is corrupt and you have to pay for your victory or freedom to come your way especially if you are likely to go to prison for a crime you have committed or you are likely to be fired from your party on charges of insubordination and indiscipline.

Rick Dzida gives yet some more examples in this discussion that demonstrate the existence of judicial corruption in Malawi.

“First, Kezzie Msukwa, the former cabinet minister, is free from being prosecuted and interrogated by the Anti-Corruption Bureau simply because the Court issued a court order to that effect.”

“Secondly, the judiciary is pregnant with corruption which is why Prof. Mutharika and DPP find it hard to get a fair judgment. Unfortunately, some members like Kondwani Nankhumwa have taken advantage of judicial corruption to shame the DPP’s leadership through court summons and injunctions.”

Political Parties Governance

Political parties are formed to govern themselves and that is why they have their constitutions. They are not formed to be governed by the courts and, unfortunately, some leaders who claim they are interested in taking over leadership are busy dragging their political parties to court up to sixteen times within three years.

Courts should desist from governing political parties through the back door. Those who are troublemakers in political parties and break their constitutions should be told to respect their own rules without fear or favor.

Otherwise, when courts allow themselves to be used by political leaders or government, they will lose trust and it will be difficult to gain it again.

“Amalawi adzakutopelani and nobody will like the ugly scenes that will expose their ugly heads because of these issues which we are suggesting should be avoided and ironed out.

When Political Parties Are Governed By Courts

There’s a lot of frustration that builds up within concerned parties when political parties are governed by the courts. They move around in circles and anger to the disadvantage of party members at the grassroots including those that are placed in decision-making positions.

I think courts should sometimes tell these justice seekers to go back to their respective political parties for a possible round table discussion first. Going to court should be the last option not priority as is the case with embattled Kondwani Nankhumwa.

Conclusion

In conclusion, We have seen in recent years that courts can influence election cases brought before them because they favor one political grouping above another. The outcome of the 2019 presidential election is one such good example in this discussion.

Facts and opinions were used by the judges to come up with their final judgement which followed the law in some areas and twisted the law in other areas. I will not go into details of this argument because that’s another long topic.

The same is true today when one side of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members are given an upper hand in every case they take to court while another side of the same party is meant to lose all cases all the time.

This is fake justice in the making because you cannot always have the same people winning all court cases all the time while the same losing side keeps losing cases every time unless someone is paying the judges to do so.

This is a great abuse of access to justice of our time which I have never seen before and must be corrected.