Despite interventions meant to ensure that people access justice as a basic human right, some Malawians are losing trust in the judiciary.
They cite reasons such as alleged corruption among judiciary officials including judges. High legal fees that the system demands is another reason behind the loss of public trust.
Disclosing this in a policy paper number 39, Afrobarometer says compared to a period between 2011 and 2013 when trust in the judiciary stood at 81 percent, people’s trust has decreased to around 71 percent in the period between 2014 and 2015.
The paper which involved 36 countries, titled “Ambitious SDG goal confronts challenging realities: Access to justice is still elusive for many Africans” released two weeks ago has also highlighted an increase in trends in perceived corruption among judges during the same period from 18 percent to 22 percent.
The Afrobarometer findings offer insight into the extent to which citizens interact with their legal systems and the quality of the interaction.
“…And the findings are sobering. Overall, it is clear that while some countries can boast significant success in providing access to justice to their citizens, most still have substantial work to do before they can claim to meet the goals set out in [Sustainable Development Goal] SDG16,” reads the report in part.
In reaction, Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale faulted Afrobarometer for ignoring his views.
“I have no comment on a report which ignored the views of a major litigant in the country,” Kaphale said
Only 11 percent of Malawians, the paper says, made contact with courts in the past five years. Fifty-seven percent of the respondents who reported some kind of contact with the courts got assistance.
According to the paper, 24 percent of the respondents paid a bribe to get assistance from the courts.
But when contacted Judiciary Spokesperson, Mlenga Mvula, said the public still has trust in the judiciary.
He, however, could not rule out cases of corruption and called on those who experienced it to come forward with evidence for the judiciary to act.
“It is an issue of having evidence. Be assured that judicial officers will dispense justice to everyone without fear or favour irrespective of race, tribe and economic level. Those bribing judicial officers should realise that they are infringing Section 103 of the constitution of Malawi which demands judicial officers to work without interference,” Mvula said.
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