By Witness Chipwere:
The Malawi Prison Service (MPS) has said it has 1,061 murder suspects who are waiting for trial in prisons across the country.
It says this is creating challenges, including overcrowding.
MPS spokesperson Steve Meke told The Daily Times that prolonged imprisonment was draining resources, compromising the provision of essential services such as healthcare, food and other basic needs for inmates.
Meke said the challenge did not only affect living conditions for inmates but also negatively affected the effectiveness of their restoration programme.
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He, however, pointed out that the criminal justice system had measures that stakeholders, notably the Judiciary and the Malawi Police Service, were obligated to do to further reduce the number of remandees.
“We are having court sessions, which are done within the court services. Judicial officers and police officers go to prisons and hold these court sessions in order to speed up the trial of these murder suspects,” Meke said.
Commenting on the matter, security analyst Aubrey Kabisala said MPS had a genuine concern as regards the growing number of people awaiting trial.
Kabisala suggested that for a speedy execution of the cases, there was a need for the provision of special judges who should be handling murder and related cases.
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“Maybe the Judiciary requires a special number of judges or certain judges that have been trained to a certain extent to avoid cases where people wait for a long time before they know the judgement for their case,” Kabisala said.
Malawi has 29 prison facilities.
