Court fails to hear MCP injunction application
The High Court in Blantyre yesterday failed to proceed with hearing an application for an injunction obtained by four Malawi Congress Party (MCP) members against their party president Lazarus Chakwera.
The aggrieved members obtained an exparte injunction restraining their president’s decision to reconstitute the party national executive committee (NEC) by creating new positions and moving existing position holders to other posts which the convention did not elect them to.
However, hearing failed to continue after MCP lawyer Robert Nthewa raised two preliminary issues for the court to address before the actual hearing of the application could start.
In his submission, Nthewa, who appeared on behalf of Wapona Kita, argued that the court in Lilongwe already dismissed another case in 2015 with similar issues they were raising.
“It is like they are using different courts to achieve the same results. Secondly, the MCP constitution stipulates that before one rushes to the court there are internal remedies to undergo so we felt their application for injunction and the action itself are premature because they need to exhaust all internal remedies that are there,” said Nthewa in an interview later.
The four aggrieved members who are seeking a court’s declaration are Stowell Gondwe, former regional chairperson for the North; Bauleni Mkweza, former regional chairperson for the Lakeshore; Angela Chunga and Malita Nasoni, former chairpersons for League of Malawi Women in Dowa East and Nsanje, respectively.
The four went to court for relief seeking an injunction to declare that Chakwera was unlawful to reconstitute the party NEC and that only the convention has powers to do that.
“As defendants we don’t have any problems with that but what we are contesting is that those are internal issues within the MCP and they are better resolved within the party,” he said.
In the Lilongwe case, the court dismissed the action after it felt that the alleged victimised party members sued a wrong party (MCP NEC) when the decision they were against was actually made by Chakwera.
On his part, Kalekeni Kaphale, lawyer representing the aggrieved members, said Judge John Chirwa after hearing their arguments reserved his ruling on the MCP preliminary issues for next week. n
