Lawyers protest over presidential interference

Hundreds of Malawian lawyers have taken to the streets of several cities to protest against interference with the judiciary after President Peter Mutharika placed the country's Chief Justice on leave pending retirement as the country gears up for a hotly-contested election rerun ordered by the court. A report on the News24 site notes that protest marches have taken place in the capital, Lilongwe, as well as Blantyre, Zomba and Mzuzu. As previously reported in Legalbrief Today, Mutharika's office issued a notice last Friday that required Chief Justice Andrew Nyirenda to take early retirement, 18 months before he was due to leave and two weeks before the country returns to the polls tomorrow. The move was blocked through a High Court injunction following appeals by the Malawi Human Rights Defenders Coalition, the Association of Magistrates and the Malawi Law Society.

Full Fin24 report

Tomorrow’s rerun, like that of last year, is turning out to be more of a contest between the judiciary and the government than between Mutharika and the opposition. In a Daily Maverick analysis, Peter Fabricius notes that the government and ruling Democratic Progressive Party have apparently also resorted to brute force to retain power. 'There’s been a spike in politically motivated violence against opposition politicians, human rights activists and journalists since May, with no arrests of those allegedly responsible. It’s hard to avoid concluding from Mutharika’s industrious attempts to neutralise the independence of Malawi’s judiciary just before elections, that he expects the judges to be called on once again to resolve the outcome of the poll. It is heartening to see a judiciary displaying such courageous independence in the face of enormous government pressure to kowtow. It is only in Kenya where African judges have shown the same courage, in annulling incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta’s election victory in 2017, despite similarly strong political pressure and even intimidation. Ideally though, politics should be decided at the hustings and not in the courts. When the political process is subverted, it is of course just as well if the courts are ready to be a safety net to catch falling democracy. Yet one can’t help suspecting that Malawi’s democracy will only be truly secure when it does not have to lean so heavily on the judiciary for its survival,' writes Fabricius.

Full analysis on the Daily Maverick site