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| National |
| High Court postpones elections, orders EC to stop Muluzi using public resources |
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by
Mabvuto Banda, 14 May 2004
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17:50:08
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The High Court in Blantyre on Friday ruled that elections be postponed to no later than May 25 and ordered the Malawi Electoral Commission to stop ruling UDF’s use of public resources for campaign.
The court also declared that the verification period of the voter’s roll starts from 14th to May 19 and that extra ballot papers be kept by the court.
The ruling effectively means that President Bakili Muluzi stops abusing MBC and TVM for campaign and other resources like government cars to his advantage.
It also means that the elections will be held after May 18.
The judges, George Chimasula-Phiri, Healy Potani and Edward Twea, acting as the Constitutional Court found the Commission at fault for failing to handle the complainants that came before them.
“Even if it meant ruling against the government, this would have meant a free and fair election and could have avoided the case in court today,” said Justice Twea.
Justice Chimasula Phiri said that the Commission has wide powers under provisions in the Constitution to act and not telling the complainants to go to court for redress.
“My finding is that the Commission was not correct by referring the issue of deployment of public resources to Office of the President and Cabinet. That should have been dealt in its powers conferred by the Constitution” he said.
On the question of the extra ballot papers, the Judges ordered that the Commission surrenders the extra ballots to be kept by the court.
“For the sake of credibility and transparency the Commission should do a manual count of the extra papers, these should be deposited into a warehouse under the control of the courts,” said Justice Chimasula Phiri.
Justice Potani ordered that the keys to the Warehouse to keep the extra ballot papers shall be in the custody of Registrar of the High Court.
But the judges did not agree that there was need to have 21 days period between verification of voters roll and polling day saying Section 31 of the Parliamentary and Parliamentary Elections Act (PPE) merely makes for the Commission to make available the voters roll to the voters for inspection.
They added that verification only arises on section 29 which provides that there must be a minimum period of 14 and 21 days as inspection before polling day.
Lawyer for Mgwirizano, which took the matter to court, Charles Mhango on Friday described the ruling as a triumph for democracy.
His counterpart Kalekeni Khampale, representing the Commission, UDF and Attorney General said that he was going to appeal.
“We are appealing on eight grounds and we should be doing that between today and tomorrow and I hope the Courts will handle the matter as quickly as possible as they have done with this one,” he said.
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