Chatham House nominates Malawi’s Judges for 2020 Prize
Present at the validation session were also Human Rights Specialist Joella Marron from the UNDP and Sophie Mautle, Assistant Director, Multilateral Affairs at Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation (MIAC), which ministry is working jointly with MOPAPA to set up the National Recommendations Tracking Database.
Marron explained that UNDP is providing support to the Human Rights Unit in four areas, being, Treaty Reporting; Comprehensive National Human Rights Strategy (which she said promises to be a really groundbreaking strategy for Botswana); helping to operationalise Botswana’s commitment to transform the Office of the Ombudsman to include Human Rights Mandate and finally the Human Rights Treaty Recommendation Database.
Speaking about the Database being set up, Mautle said it is a tool that the country has adopted as an enabler to “allow us to not only keep proper reporting but to assist us as a country to ensure that even the job that we do on the ground is regular”.
Mautle touched on the Agreements Database that is hosted in Botswana through DIT and managed through the Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation. She said that together with developing the National Recommendations Tracking Database, they are also updating the Agreements Database with the assistance of the UNDP to ensure that it is also “functional and user-friendly”.
The ultimate goal, she said, is that beyond usage by “ourselves, any member of the public can simply Google” by entering ‘Botswana Agreements; upon which the Database will show all the Agreements that the country has.
Mauthe said the Tracking Database will have three main layers –Administration; Lead Users and then Implementation Users.
There was also Dr. Kaelo Molefhe, the Governance Advisor to President Dr. Mokgweetsi Masisi, who in closing, took time to speak on governance as an investment towards socio-economic, political and environmental progress for any country.
He said it is imperative that Botswana, which is an acclaimed democracy in the region and the world at large, invests in good governance. The key thing with democracy or the test of our democracy will be how we treat the vulnerable and the marginalised members of our society.
Protection and advocating for better application for human rights in the country; giving dignity to those vulnerable groups in terms of provision of access to education and health and other amenitie.
The regional economic bloc, SADC and law experts at the University of Botswana have welcomed the Chatham House’s decision to nominate Malawi’s Constitutional Court judges among the three nominees for the Chatham House Prize 2020.
The judges are nominated along with Jens Stoltenberg and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and New Zealand. Executive Secretary of SADC Dr Stergomena Tax said “I congratulate them”.
University of Botswana (UB) lecturer Professor Bugalo Maripe said in the first instance the judiciary in Africa have been perceived to be lacking the necessary independence to adjudicate any matters that come before them freely and without favour.
Particularly, the perception is that “they favour the state because they are hired by the state”. He said the judiciary in Malawi has to some extent debunked this perception when it overturned election results against a seating administration, which act demonstrated they acted independently and without fear.
“Although it is not the first of such a development in Africa, it is quite noticeable in its effect and for that reason it must surely stand out as deserving of commendation. Therefore the nomination could not have come at a better time,” he said.
The Chatham House brief states on their website that; Malawi’s Constitutional Court Judges are nominated for their courage and independence in the defence of democracy through their historic February 2020 ruling, which annulled the May 2019 presidential elections.
The panel of five High Court judges identified widespread irregularities in the polls and called for fresh elections within 150 days. Such a ruling is unprecedented in Malawi, where limited progress has been made in the consolidation of democracy since the end of one-party rule in 1994, and where past elections have been marred by irregularities and violence.
The judges faced a great deal of pressure and personal risk. They reported highlevel attempts at bribery and arrived at the High Court to deliver their ruling wearing bulletproof vests and under military escort. The Malawi ruling is crucial not only in rebuilding the confidence of the country’s citizens in their institutions and the potential of democracy, but also more widely in Africa.
In recent decades important progress has been made in democratisation in some African countries, but these gains are fragile and judiciaries have struggled to assert their independence in the face of significant pressures and the power of incumbency. Courts have struggled to deal with highly complex and fraught election disputes - and have only stepped in to annul elections in Côte d’Ivoire in 2010 and in Kenya in 2017.
Globally, democratic systems of government are being challenged. In addition, the constraints and authoritarian opportunism catalysed by the corona virus pandemic make this a crucial time to recognize those efforts being made to protect and progress democratic and more accountable governance.