Malawi prison authorities defy court order over congestion
Prison authorities continue to highly congest prisons in the country flatly defying a Constitutional Court order to decongest them.
The Constitutional Court recently ordered prison authorities to decongest prisons by releasing some inmates with petty crimes.
Centre for Human Rights, Education and Advice (CHREAA) executive director Victor Mhango said the situation in prisons remains worse than ever before.
“The prison authorities are failing to implement the court ruling because they do not have the powers to release inmates,” said Mhango.
He said his organization has already filed cases in the courts to give powers to the prison authorities to release prisoners in order to decongest the prisons.
Is it not strange that the courts are accusing prisons for congestion? Prisons just keep what courts have sent them. Some people who do not even deserve long custodial sentences are sent to prison when community work could have been the right sentence and some with petty crimes are given long sentences just because they are poor.
Indescribable. What does the judiciary expect the prison service to do? Its the courts that are to blame for they are the ones who send people to prison. Don’t issue a blanket order to prison to decongest the prisons without giving them guidelines on how to do it.
koma okupha ma Albino okha asatuluke anthu ankhaza kwambiri
The path taken by the court gives responsibility to prisons without authority. This is wrong if indeed they are serious then they should order retrial where a determination on the cases seriousness will be made by the judge then the rest can be released. Otherwise for prison authorities to use their desecration you will give room to corruption