MEC, APM Apply For Stay On ConCourt Ruling, File Appeal Notices

Mutharika: Effects intention to suspend judgment Mutharika: Effects intention to suspend judgment File Photo

The Malawi Electoral Commission-MEC-and President Peter Mutharika have filed applications asking the courts to order that effect of the recent ruling of the Constitutional Court on the Presidential election case be delayed to allow for a pending appeal case, for which they have also both filed notice.

High Court and Supreme Court registrar, Agnes Patemba, told Zodiak Friday that her office has the applications for stay and also a notice for appeal.

“We are in receipt of the applications for stay of execution of the recent order. We also have a MEC notice of appeal and the grounds for the appeal,” Patemba told Zodiak Online.

President Peter Mutharika, on his part, has indicated 138 grounds for appeal before the courts.

"Reliefs sought  from the court include: "...an order setting the judgment of the court, dismissing the petition, setting aside all the reliefs granted under it, and reversing and discharging all the consequential orders including the order for costs against the 2nd appellants".

Patemba told Zodiak Online she would be consulting the five judges who sat in the Constitutional Court for guidance and direction going forward from here.

The action by MEC comes only hours after President Peter Mutharika, who was the second respondent in the presidential election case, also made public his intention to appeal against the 500 page ruling for the special court.

But when he reacted to the action by President Mutharika, law expert Professor Garton Kamchedzera on Wednesday took a swipe at the president’s legal team accusing it of ignoring principles of good lawyering which entails honest advise to clients on issues.

He suggested that the move was political and only aimed at buying time to keep in office an illegitimate regime after the courts declared its May 2019 election illegal.

Professor Kamchedzera says it is high time lawyers critically advised clients according to laws and ethics not only the rights and needs of their clients.

He said it was “disheartening” that lawyers for President Mutharika seem to be interested in only delaying implementation of the judgment and, that way, leave their client with false hope when that, in the end, benefits a few people.

“It is possible to have a law degree without being a lawyer or to have the lawyer move out of a person. To me, what makes a lawyer is not the law degree, but expected dependable skills, including the skills to provide ethical legal counsel and critical legal thinking.

“In this case some of the lawyers we have are dishonest, arrogant, greedy, venal, amoral, ruthless buckets of toxic slime. They just want to fulfil own needs not for their clients and for the nation,” said professor Kamchedzera.

He has since challenged them to act in a way which will benefit Malawians not just a few, out of their alleged planned scheme to delay the implementation of the constitutional judgment.

“I would say it is a legal and political perspective one can allege that this is a technique by Mutharika lawyers to delay the implementation of the judgment.

“They have actually advise him that you are our client , you will remain in office as president, and what the court said is nothing, knowing very well time will elapse, for example, if they ask the supreme court that judgment should be halted, everyone stops using it, it will set the country backwards,” said Kamchedzera

Professor Kamchedzera has also shared his sentiments on his facebook page.

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Last modified on Friday, 07/02/2020

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