AEJN Symposium: A round of applause for CJ Malaba
THE past week in Victoria Falls was a hive of activity as the legal brains from the african continent converged at the Elephant Hills for the africa Electoral Justice Network (AEJN) Third annual symposium which ran from January 31 to February 3.
The symposium discussed among other issues on how the judiciary system could be involved in settling electoral disputes.
The symposium was characterised by various legal experts who had presented on various areas of discussions.
Most of the presentations centred on what constitutes democracy and good governance. They also discussed modalities on how to conduct elections that can be judged as free, fair and credible.
In that vein some burning issues came to the fore when some legal brains one by one stood up among the delegates to present on their various areas.
some presenters would compare and contrast elections held across the continent in the past years.
among those presentations that generated more interests was the one on the 2021 Malawi and the 2017 Kenyan scenarios where the courts the respective countries nullified presidential elections necessitating fresh polls.
For those who are not aware of what transpired in Kenya and Malawi, in august 2017, presidential elections were held in Kenya where President Uhuru Kenyatta won by 54,17 percent, while his main challenger Raila Odinga polled 44,94 percent of the valid vote cast, but he refused to accept defeat.
He challenged President Kenyatta’s victory in court and the court led by the then Chief Justice David Maraga nullified President Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory.
Relatedly, in May 2019, presidential elections were held in Malawi with President Peter Mutharika winning presidential elections, but Mr saulos Klaus Chilima leader of United Transformation Movement Party and Dr lazarus Chakwera of Malawi Congress Party, now Malawian President, combined forces to challenge President Peter Mutharika’s victory in court and the court, like the Kenyan one, nullified them.
The poll was allegedly fraught with many irregularities as the local elections board kept on changing voter tallies and many saw the images of the tipexed tally cards as they were shared on social media.
Back to the symposium in Victoria Falls, and in his presentation, Maraga said electoral processes had challenges such as vote buying, hacking, ballot stuffing, rigging and natural disasters which make it difficult to deliver free, fair and credibility elections.
Maraga further said the challenges were causing judges and the
In a move that showed a bull is difficult to defeat or conquer when challenged inside its kraal, Chief Justice Luke Malaba, defended the operational services of the Zimbabwean judiciary system. He pointed out that every judiciary system has its ways of doing things
judicial systems to lose credibility and public confidence.
He, however, indicated that it was up to the courts to work impartially to counter such challenges.
Reacting to Maraga’s presentations, former Director of Political affairs of african Union Commission (AUC) and author of the african Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, Dr Khabele Matlosa attempted to indirectly attack other judiciary systems where Zimbabwe was also part of when he proposed that the Kenyan and Malawian electoral petitions cases should be taken as case studies for future AEJN symposiums.
His view was that those judges who did not nullify elections were failing to discharge their judiciary work properly and failing to satisfy the public who would be expecting more from the judiciary.
In a move that showed a bull is difficult to defeat or conquer when challenged inside its kraal, Chief Justice luke Malaba, defended the operational services of the Zimbabwean judiciary system.
He pointed out that every judiciary system has its ways of doing things.
Chief Justice Malaba rejected the notion of having the Malawian and Kenyan scenarios as case studies for future AEJN symposiums.
He contended that african electoral processes were different in their own unique ways.
He argued that in Zimbabwe, the opposition tried to pile pressure on the judicial service players to accept its claim of alleged vote rigging in august 2018 without producing evidence to support their allegations.
Chief Justice Malaba further stated that Zimbabwean courts operated on facts and evidence brought before them before passing judgements.
He argued that it was on this basis that the local judicial system remained resolute regardless of pressure from anti-Government organisations and opposition outfits.
He added that the opposition in 2018, failed to produce the alleged Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) V11 forms which they had used on social media to claim that they had all the forms needed to buttress their electoral petition.
The Chief Justice maintained that the courts and judges should always be guided by evidence produced to make informed judgements without bowing down to pressure which, in turn, would compromise their independence and credibility.
In accepting presentations and highlights by Chief Justice Malaba, Chairperson of AEJN and former south african High Court Judge, Justice Boissie Henry Mbha agreed that what Chief Justice Malaba had put forward was acceptable hence the Malawi and Kenyan cases would not be classified as case studies for future AEJN meeting as proposed by Dr Khabele Matlosa.
at the end of the day, Justice Malaba stood his ground against the proposal to make the Kenyan and Malawian judgements case studies given the peculiarities of each country’s judicial systems.
He showed the world that a spade should be called a spade and refused to bow down to both internal and external pressures in discharging judicial matters.
It is an example which should be followed by all those in the judiciary field that they should discharge their duties without favour or bias.
They should not be intimidated by any other forces as doing that would render their judgements ineffective and subjects to ridicule from the public.
actually, if those in judicial field tend to bow down to seen and unseen pressures and hand down wrong judgements that are not of their making that would jeopardise integrity of their operations and professionalism.
This invites attacks from all corners of the world including in the social media.
The people should applaud Chief Justice Malaba’s strong stand against those who sought to push for more election nullification whether or not facts and evidence support the judgement.
He demonstrated before the world that he is a man of principle.