Supreme Court of Malawi dismisses State appeal on UTM registration

The Supreme Court of Appeal on Thursday rejected  an appeal by the Attorney General (AG) and the registrar of political parties against the High Court  rrebuff  to put aside the court’s earlier order to register newly formed UTM as a political party within seven days.

High Court Judge John Chirwa rubbuffed the prayer for stay of execution of his  November 2 2018 order to register URM—which is promoting Vice-President Saulos Chilima’s presidential ticket in the May 21 2019 Tripartite Elections, citING that there were no good grounds in support of the application.

But the State through  senior State advocate in the Attorney General’s (AG) Chambers Neverson Chisiza,  appealed to the Supreme Court of Malawi.

State brought the stay exparte application before Justice Frank Kapanda in the Supreme Court.

But Justice Kapanda has summarily dismissed it with no option for interparte hearing.

“The court below was right in its reasoning and its decision sustained and confirmed,” said the Judge.

In his ruling, Kapanda dismissed the State’s reapplication for an exparte order, observing that there was nothing from the sworn statement of the deputy registrar of political parties to show that High Court judge John Chirwa improperly exercised his judicial discretion or misappkied the law respecting stay of execution.

UTM lawyer Michael Goba Chipeta said  this means the court order is still in operation and “we expect the registrar to comply”.

He said there is nothing at law stopping the registrar of political parties from registering UTM as a political party under the Political Parties (Registration and Regulation) Act by Friday, November 9, 2018.