Mayaya withdraws sec 65 challenge
Human rights activist Billy Mayaya has withdrawn his challenge to vacate a stay order which 11 United Democratic Front (UDF) members of Parliament (MPs) obtained to stop Speaker of Parliament from making a decision on whether they crossed the floor.
Mayaya accused the MPs of suppressing facts in the bid to obtain the order.
The activist, through his lawyer Chimwemwe Kalua of Golden & Law Company, withdrew the application on Tuesday, but no reasons were given for the withdrawal.
Mayaya had joined as amicus curiae (friend of the court) in the case which is among the State, Speaker of Parliament Richard Msowoya and the 11 UDF MPs who had earlier successfully obtained an injunction stopping the Speaker from kicking them out of the House.
Earlier, Mayaya and later Salima North-West MP Jessie Kabwila (Malawi Congress Party-MCP) petitioned the Speaker to declare vacant the seats of the UDF MPs, arguing they had joined the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) when they requested to sit on the government side in Parliament.
In an interview yesterday, Mayaya said: “It is true that we have withdrawn the case based on what we feel are clear biases in the case. It was obvious that there was a deliberate undermining of the process by the courts. The democratisation process is also being flouted in terms of access to justice by ordinary citizens.”
Mayaya was challenging the earlier court order, arguing that the MPs had accepted the commencement of Section 65 procedures by responding to the petition, but the court granted them a stay order.
Point two of Mayaya’s argument before the court read: “That by the time they [UDF MPs] were applying for judicial review and stay order, the Speaker’s order had already been complied with. In the premises, the applicants obtained the stay order through suppression of material facts… It is prayed that the order of stay granted herein be vacated/discharged.”
On the next course of action, Mayaya said he hoped that others would take up the case.
Meanwhile, a judicial review into the Section 65 procedures is expected to go ahead with UDF MPs accusing the Speaker of lacking impartiality because he allowed the irregular petition by Mayaya to be transferred to Kabwila, describing the action as illegal and unreasonable.
Eleven of UDF’s 14 MPs in the 193-member National Assembly moved to the government side in Parliament in May this year to cement a working relationship between their party and DPP.
The move has stirred debate where prominent legal scholars, the Malawi Law Society and the Attorney General have given different opinions on whether the decision is tantamount to crossing of the floor as stipulated in Section 65 of the Constitution.
The three UDF MPs not affected are party president Atupele Muluzi, who is Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security, Second Deputy Speaker Clement Chiwaya and Balaka North MP Lucius Banda, who was the party’s leader in Parliament before the move.
Currently, UDF has no leadership and voice in Parliament as a political party. Its leadership was also booted out of the influential Business Committee of Parliament.
