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The Constitutional Conference meant to review the country’s laws, which was scheduled for January 15 and 17, has been postponed to an unknown date, Justice Minister Henry Phoya disclosed on Thursday.
Phoya said the “only reason” for the postponement is because government feels that enough consultations have not been done with the grassroots and that there is need for further consultations.
“It is the view of government that if we do a botched-up job, we will get back to a situation where we will be taking amendments to Parliament and it is the intention of this administration to try as much as possible not to tamper with the Constitution just anyhow. We feel that the best way of doing this is by having a properly-done review,” said Phoya.
He said government believes that if the process is hurried, certain things will be left out and others done in a haphazard manner and “we will simply go back to Parliament and ask it to carry out further amendments.”
“Government is seriously committed to ensure that the Constitutional conference is held in the course of the year but we will only have it when we can actually feel that we have satisfactorily reached out to the masses such as the chiefs and other stakeholders,” said Phoya.
“You may also be aware that our Constitution has been amended on more occasions that the American Constitution and yet the American Constitution is over 200 years old,” he added.
Law Commissioner Elton Singini said in a statement on Thursday government has requested the commission to postpone the national constitution review conference to a later date next year to allow more time for public consultations.
“Government has taken the view that there is need to further broaden the consultations leading up to the conference, particularly at the grass roots level so that the process is seen to be as widely inclusive as possible of all shades of opinion in the country,” he said.
Singini said government has also suggested that they “may have to redesign the methodology in order to accomplish the objective of ensuring broad-based consultations”.
The Malawi Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), while welcoming the idea, called on government to set a date to avoid suspicion that there is something sinister behind the postponement.
HRCC Chair Rodgers Newa said a date should be set to remove fears that this may be the end of the whole idea.
“It is a welcome development because we also wanted more people to be consulted. As of today we believe three quarters of the people have not been consulted,” said Newa.
“We hope there is nothing behind it, that’s why we want a date to be set. It’s dangerous to postpone indefinitely”.
But Phoya said government will work with the commission without interfering with its independence and mandate to ensure that more people have been consulted before a new date is set for the conference “not far away from now”.
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