Prof Mutharika says Courts Act to improve justice delivery system
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Prof Peter Mutharika says the Courts Acts which he presented in National Assembly and was approved will help in improving the country’s justice delivery system.
“The idea is to increase the jurisdiction of the Magistrate courts,” Prof Mutharika told Capital Radio’s Straight Talk on Thursday night.
“At the moment for example, the fourth grade magistrate only has a jurisdiction limit of K50, 000. That was set in 1995. We are raising that now to K500,000,” he said.
“Now, what it means, is that most of the cases which are going to the High Court because of the amounts. The amounts are beyond jurisdiction of the magistrates. Those [cases] will now stay in a magistrate,” explained Prof Mutharika.
“That way people will not have to travel long distance to the High Court. Most of the cases will be handled in the rural areas,” he said.
The Justice Minister said he has been visiting courts in different parts of the country to acquaint himself with the status of the justice houses.
“I have been touring the country visiting courts. I am looking at physical infrastructure of the courts, some of them are in very poor condition,” he noted.
Mutharika said about 86 courts are in “very poor condition”.
The Justice Minister said he wants to improve functional capacity of the judiciary in the country.
“We would like to get cases in the computer. Most of the cases are very hard to find because they are not computerised,” he pointed out.
“I would like to bring computerisation, that’s another priority,” he said.
Prof Mutharika also said he would like to enhance the potential of lawyers in the Ministry of Justice chambers.
“We would like to upgrade for other continued education for our lawyers, improve their skills, expose them to international institutions,” he said.
Straight Talk is an in-depth interview programme on privately owned Capital Radio and is presented by prolific broadcast journalist, Brian Banda on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
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