By Cathy Maulidi:
Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament Chairperson Peter Dimba has described the country’s criminal justice system as rotten.
He has since suggested that there be an overhaul of the system.
Dimba said this Tuesday during a criminal justice system reform conference that is taking place in Lilongwe under the theme ‘Pre-trial Custody Time Limits And The State of Justice System in Malawi’.
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Dimba claimed that the system worked against the poor and smiled at the rich.
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“It is a system that embarrasses suspects and has a high appetite for jailing people when there are other ways of punishing convicts,” he said.
Dimba said the system needed an overhaul in all aspects, be it legal aspects, practices, traditions and procedures.
“For example, consider the practices in police cells, where suspects are subjected to very poor conditions—very dark cells, lack of ventilation—and are treated like convicts even before trial. This highlights just one aspect of the broader systemic issues,” Dimba said.
Responding to the issue, Malawi Police Service’s Superintendent Damiano Kaputa said Parliament was partly to blame.
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He said lawmakers had the means to effect the needed changes.
“You, Honourable Member, make the laws. If you see that the laws are rotten, then fix them. Being a Member of Parliament means you have a responsibility.
“And on the [issue of] suspects’ mistreatment, you have a responsibility to allocate enough financial resources [to us] for us to provide the kind of treatment you are talking about,” Kaputa said.
On his part, Chief Justice Rizine Mzikamanda said he was not surprised with the blame game on the delivery of justice issue but was quick to say he was hopeful that, at some point, all stakeholders would arrive at some understanding.
“We have established the Criminal Justice Coordination Committee to remove this blame game. So, I’m not surprised that there is this blame game but I’m hopeful that, beyond this blame game, we will come to some understanding on what needs to be done to improve the criminal justice system in Malawi.
“We should move away from the blame game to constructing a criminal justice system that is efficient and effective for the Malawian people,” Mzikamanda said.
On his part, Justice Minister Titus Mvalo said there were, indeed, challenges.
He was quick to say conferences like the one taking place in the administrative capital had the potential to enable stakeholders to iron out such issues.
“We all know that there are serious problems in the justice system. We all know it. We all hear that some people have been detained for so many years without trial. So this conference will help us shape how we move forward,” Mvalo said.
Director of Public Prosecutions Masauko Chamkakala concurred with Mvalo and the Chief Justice that there were serious problems in the system.
He emphasised that such problems had to be addressed collectively.
