The Ministry of Justice claims that it has helped government save K1 trillion from cases it contested in 2023.
Justice Minister Titus Mvalo confirmed the development, with the ministry’s spokesperson Frank Namangale corroborating the sentiments.
“The K1 trillion the Ministry of Justice has reported to have saved in the year 2023 is based on calculations we have carefully made on the 1,320 civil cases we contested. Among these cases, there are cases where claimants demanded huge sums of money but, after our challenge, the courts, in their decisions, ended up reducing the amounts or, in some instances, we ended up winning the cases altogether.
“The cases included assessments that the Office of the Attorney General has actually defended and not negotiated. We also had default judgements in some cases, where the government would have paid but we were able to have them set aside,” Namangale said.
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He said the ministry would continue to be vigilant in protecting public funds.
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Namangale observed that the cases include those where claimants were demanding huge sums of money, but through the arrangement, the government ended up paying less.
Meanwhile, Malawi Law Society President Patrick Mpaka has said it is a “normal” responsibility of the State to protect the public interest in cases.
He said if, indeed, 1,320 cases have been successfully defended and K1 trillion saved, that is a commendable volume of work.
“It would have been more helpful to give comparative numbers and statistics and perhaps an indication of the stage at which such defence was put up in the litigation for the public to appreciate how that reported achievement serves the people’s interests compared to previous performance,” Mpaka said.
