Judiciary to meet on judges, lawyers
In the face of revelations of clandestine dealings between some lawyers and court staff to frustrate the justice process, the Judiciary is set to meet next month to find a way forward towards addressing the issue.
In a telephone interview yesterday, registrar of the High Court of Malawi and Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal, Agnes Patemba, also said the February meeting would discuss concerns about availability of judicial officers and some judges taking too long to conclude cases.
She said: “We will have a judges’ meeting from February 13 to 15 and one of the issues on the agenda is corruption. After the meeting, we will have thoroughly discussed the matter and seen how best to handle it.”
Patemba’s sentiments come in the wake of a leaked letter written by High Court Judge Esmie Chombo, judge president for Lilongwe Registry, on how lawyers and court staff connive to “displace or destroy a court file so as to frustrate case proceedings”.
In her letter, whose story our sister newspaper Weekend Nation broke on Saturday, Chombo alleges that court staff are lured with money to prioritise work for certain legal firms as well as to remove documents of lawyers representing the other party so as to mislead the court that the party failed to file the necessary documents prior to the date of hearing.
She said sometimes lawyers and court staff also conspire to open a new file and present the matter as a fresh one before a different judge when the last judge handling the matter had declined an application that counsel was seeking.
But while saying no official complaint had been made on the issues raised, Patemba said the Judiciary had noted some case files for specific legal firms having missing documents.
She said: “We have heard such rumours and some of them have been very strong rumours… But we don’t have concrete evidence on who did what.
“We just know there have been case files for certain legal houses where you would find some documents missing. There are also some lawyers who are usually seen visiting the premises after working hours.”
Patemba said after learning about the developments relating to illicit transactions, the Judiciary convened a meeting three weeks ago where a stern warning on “necessary action” was issued to any employee discovered engaging in the same.
She said: “But we would also love the public to bring feedback to us because people would just speculate and with general complaints it becomes hard to take action because there is no specific individual or individuals to take to task but when you have an official complaint you have a ground on which to take action.”
Janet Banda, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs principal secretary and solicitor general, said yesterday although issues of corrupt lawyers and court clerks are supposed to be handled by the Malawi Law Society (MLS) and the Judiciary, respectively, it will pursue the matter now that it is in public domain.
“We have not received any complaint about corrupt lawyers, the only information we have is to do with lawyers and clients. But since it is in newspapers, as a ministry, we will make a follow -up as a policy holder on what is going on,” she said.
When contacted on whether they would institute a probe into the matter, Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) spokesperson Egrita Ndala said the bureau just saw the issues in last Saturday’s Weekend Nation so no position had been made.
“Official position comes when there is an official consultation on the matters raised but may be what I can say is we will pick up the matter and process it like any other complaint and then see what could be done after the reviews,” she said.
But human rights campaigner Robert Mkwezalamba said the development was denying innocent citizens justice.
“Those using the court system are denied the right to access justice but also if their files can be sat on, legal representation becomes costly,” he said.
Mkwezalamba, who is chairperson of the Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), appealed to government to strengthen the case management system to ensure that it is up to date and running.
Over the years, court processes in the country have been riddled with missing files or missing pages in case files, misplacements of files, among others, as some challenges rocking the justice delivery system.
Allegations of judge shopping, where some lawyers allegedly dangle carrots for their preferred judges to handle particular cases, have also been rife. Further, there have also been concerns about some judges taking too long to conclude cases, a development some commentators have described as stifling justice, especially for the poor and vulnerable members of society. n
