The Malawi Human Rights Commission says it is engaging the Ministries of Justice and Information and Digitalisation to amend the Access to Information Act (ATI) to strengthen enforcement of the law.

Director of Political and Civil Rights, Peter Chisi, says the commission has noted an existing gap in the powers of the commission to sanction information holders not complying with the law that has been operational for close to five years.

Chisi says there also needs to be clarity in the law on how it applies to political parties, whether they also fall under public institutions or not.

He says despite that the commission has managed to pounce on some institutions for failing to comply with the law, it has remained constrained by lack of some enforcement mechanism.

Chisi says lack of clear application guidelines of the law on political parties is affecting the compliance of the law among the sector as it does not specify if these are public or private institutions.

"This law has been in operational for five years no, a lot of things have happened and what we have noted is that there is need for enforcement. What we have experienced is that there is a bit of a gap in terms of powers of the commission to enforce sanctions on those found not complying with the law,hence the consultations for the amendment," noted Chisi.

Francis Mmame, the Malawi Law Society Honorary Secretary, says laws are meant to be changed but calls for more consultations on the matter.

"All laws are meant for be amended, they are not static. We've noted that the commission under section 9 of the act is given the mandate to oversee implementation of the law, then they are justified to move the two ministers," said Mmame.

"There is a need for a wide consultation on the matter to find a viable solution," he added.

The Access to Information law was enacted in 2016 but became operational in 2020.