High Court orders Times Group to pay George Chaponda K30m within 7 days of the ‘maizegate’ defamation case
High Court Judge, Justice Mike Tembo ordered Times Group on Monday, December 11, to honour K30 million of the K50 million the court ordered the giant media house to pay former Minister of Agriculture, George Chaponda within seven days for defaming Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) vice-president for the Southern Region through the infamous ‘maize gate’ scandal of 2016.
Last month, the High Court Civil Division’s Principal Registry ordered that the politician be compensated with K50 million following the judgement made by Justice Dingiswayo Madise on February 22, 2022 — in which he ruled that Times Group defamed the former when its newspapers reported on the maize saga.
This is against the K350 million which Chaponda had demanded as compensation while the Times Group proposed that K5 million would be adequate after the media house had denied during the court case and asked proof of defamation as the maize-gate reports were published for the national interest and in pursuit of media freedom on public information of public interest.
In an interview, Chaponda’s lawyer Tamanda Chokhotho said after the Civil Division’s Principal Registry’s determination of the K50 compensation, legal counsel for Times Group applied for a stay order to Justice Tembo, which was later denied as it lacked enough evidence to be guaranteed.
Chokhotho said the court then went on to charge K30 million upon considering that the media house had appealed the previous K50 million charge but he emphasized that the institution will still have to pay the remaining K20 million — or not depending on the outcome of the appeal.
“We are happy that we are making progress on the matter,” Chokhotho said. “We will seek further instructions whether to challenge the partial stay order in the Supreme Court, but at least we have started making a positive progress.”
Lawyer representing Times Group excused himself from making any comment on the matter.
Chaponda sought court intervention after a series of newspaper reports in The Daily Times, Malawi News and The Sunday Times, claiming they were defamatory in nature, saying they were falsely and malicious written.
The maize-gate scandal saw Chaponda being sacked as Agriculture Minister and was later arrested on July 19, 2017 alongside businessperson, Rashid Tayub of Transglobal Produce Limited and chairperson of Grain and Traders Processors Association of Malawi, Grace Mijiga Mhango in connection to the procurement of Zambia maize.
After several court appearances and a commission of inquiry into the issue, Chaponda was acquitted by the Zomba Magistrate court in June, 2020.
In its defence when Chaponda sued, Times Group denied that the reports were meant to damage, injure and discredit Chaponda’s character and reputation.
In his ruling last year, Justice Madise directed the Registry that the damages awarded should not be huge which will end up bankrupting the media house since responsible media freedom is necessary in a democracy as it calls on public servants to account and the media must be protected by the law and the courts.
And taking cognizance that the value of Malawi Kwacha keeps on declining — having considered that Chaponda proposed compensation of K350 million while the defendant proposed that K5 million would be adequate — Deputy Registrar I.M. Nebi determined that “all else taken into consideration, the Court forms the view that a sum of K50 million would be adequate” as compensation for Chaponda and it was “accordingly awarded to him”.
Nebi emphasised what Justice Madise determined that the said articles “were published in the context of fraud, corruption and mismanagement of funds in the procurement of maize by the government through ADMARC between April and October 2016…allegations that aroused public interest”.
The Mulanje South West Parliamentarian claimed that the newspapers “launched a coordinated defamatory, libelous and injurious barrage of publications”.
In his judgement, Justice Madise said having looked at the evidence for and against, he found that the Times Group publications “went overboard in their quest to inform the public” and that “their freedom as a media house injured Chaponda’s name in the eyes of right thinking members of the society”.
He judged that the newspapers embarked on publications that violated Chaponda’s character and that “the civil law must remedy this assault”.
“Commenting on issues of public interest does not involve injuring the integrity of other people,” said the judgement. “When commenting on issues of public interest, vis-a-vis public officials, the defence of qualified privilege or fair comment can only be invoked where there is some truth in the story.
“However, that not withstanding, the defendants herein had a duty to balance the interests of the public to receive information and the rights of the claimant not to be unjustly ridiculed. No one should injure the reputation of other people under the guise of fair comment and media freedom.”
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