The Malawi Law Society (MLS) has called on President Lazarus Chakwera to fire Minister of Homeland Security, Ezekiel Ching’oma and Inspector General of Police, Marilyn Yolamu.
The call has been made after an attack on peaceful demonstrators in Lilongwe on Thursday by unknown assailants who wore face masks.
Led by Sylvester Namiwa, the demonstrators, who had gathered at Lilongwe Community Ground to express their displeasure with the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), were brutally attacked by machete-wielding individuals in full view of officers from the Malawi Police Service and the Malawi Defence Force, who failed to intervene.
Furthermore, vehicles belonging to the protesters were set ablaze, escalating the threat to life, property, and the democratic right to dissent.
These barbaric acts occurred in full view of the state security agents namely the Malawi Police Service and the Malawi Defence Force. .
“The Society calls upon the Malawi Police Service to immediately trace and bring to justice those responsible for assaulting and harassing peaceful protesters. The Society notes that this is not an isolated incident. Violence has repeatedly been unleashed against those who have sought to exercise their right to freedom of assembly and other allied rights, most of which has been in full view of the state machinery.
“The Society considers this inaction by the State and its security agents, which has in some instances been accompanied by cosmetic action, to be a calculated suppression of the right to freedom of assembly enshrined under section 38 of the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi (Constitution),” reads the statement signed by MLS president Davis Njobvu
The Society said the actions violates fundamental rights to security of person, freedom of association, freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, and political participation enshrined in sections 19, 32, 34, 35, and 40 of the Constitution.
“The Society notes that under section 153(4) of the Constitution, the Minister is responsible for ensuring that ‘the discipline and conduct of the Malawi Police Service accords with the prescriptions of [the] Constitution’ a responsibility which the Minister has demonstrably failed to uphold.
“In making this call, the Society has considered the powers of command, superintendence, and direction that are bestowed in the office of the Inspector General under section 7 of the Police Act, and the powers that the President has under sections 154 (4) (a) and (b) of the Constitution, which respectively allow for the removal of the Inspector General of Police on account of incompetence of compromised impartiality.
“Serious doubts exist regarding the competence and impartiality of the Inspector General of Police in light of today’s events, warranting her immediate removal from office,’ he said
