Maravi

Milupi urges strengthening of Judicial Service Commission

Milupi urges strengthening of Judicial Service Commission
By Kombe Chimpinde
Wed 11 Jan. 2012, 13:56 CAT

THE Chief Justice and judges should be appointed by the Judicial Service Commission, says Charles Milupi. In an interview, Milupi says tasking the Judicial Service Commission to appoint the Chief Justice and judges as opposed to the President will enhance the independence of the judiciary.

Milupi, the Alliance for Democracy and Development leader, said he was hopeful that the new constitution will have a provision that will pave way for an independent and robust Judicial Service Commission to be charged with the mandate of appointing judges.

"So the Judiciary Service Commission must be strengthened to make it independent and they must be the ones to promote and appoint judges based on integrity, based on length of service, based on quality of judgments that they have made," Milupi said.

"We should have a very robust, independent Judicial Service Commission that does all these things and that also must be funded separately so that they handle their investigations separately. The same applies to the legislature."

Milupi said currently, the governance of the country was structured in a manner that the legislature and adjudicator were totally dependent on the executive for emoluments and other operational requirements.

"The constitution-making process affords us an opportunity to have a constitution that will stand the test of time. But in coming up with a constitution, there are various tenets that have to be considered. We have to ensure that it clearly articulates the independence of the three arms of government, where the powers of the President are reduced and redistributed and re-delegated to three arms of government," he said.

Milupi said the judiciary was only independent in theoretic rather than practical terms.

"With reference especially to the adjudicator, obviously because these are constitutional offices they then have to be ratified by Parliament but we must get away from having the President determining who the Chief Justice is, who the other High Court judges are and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP)," he said.

"Currently the President has overbearing powers over the Judiciary. He didn't create those powers for himself. It is the constitution-making processes that left things like that."

Milupi also called for constitutional provisions that would enhance the role of Parliament in terms of keeping an oversight on the operations of government and utilisation of resources.

"We want Parliament to be more involved in the development of the budget. At the moment the budget just goes by way of speech to Parliament, that's the time Parliament comes to know about it. We need to enhance the role of the Auditor General to make them have responsibility for initiating prosecutions to those who are erring," said Milupi.

"At the moment, you can be chairman of the Accounts Committee (PAC) and you expose so many things but you still rely on the executive to prosecute, if they want to…."

Labels: ADD, CHARLES MILUPI, JUDICIARY

posted by MrK @ 9:19 PM