Malawi law expert blames delays on Sec 65 injunction vacation on Speaker’s office
Malawi’s constitutional lawyer Edge Kanyongolo is expressing the need for the country to consider removing the conflict of interest that makes the speaker of parliament to act on legal issues which are political in nature that involve the speaker’s office.
Kanyongolo was reacting to the concerns over delays by the speaker’s office to push for the vacation of injunction straining the Speaker from effecting the provision of Section 65 on the parliamentarians that crossed the flow.
“If we expect the Speaker to remove that injunction we should also consider about the interests involved here because in most often the Speaker is on an awkward position because in one hand the Speaker is supposed to be neutral but on the other hand the speaker is also a politician who has political interests,” he noted.
However, Kanyongolo said one of the best options is the revisiting the laws that allows the Speaker to double as a politician.
“But that may take long time. The immediate thing is for the Speaker to consult the Attorney General and seek from the Attorney General’s office assistance on proper away of removing the injunction,” he said.
He said the recent move taken by the Speaker of Parliament to implement the anti-defection law confirms that section 65 is still around and MPs should be guided by it in their behavior.
“If there is an injunction that the needs to be vacated it is up to the party whose interests are greatly affected by that decision to go to court and argue the case and apply for the injunctions to be vacated. So the blamed should be at those who have failed to apply to the court to have the injunction vacated,” he said.
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