Malawi Congress Party (MCP) lawyers say the Constitutional Court should provide guidance on the management of the fresh elections and which candidates should be eligible if the court declareS the May 21 presidential elections null and void.
MCP lawyer Modecai Msisha said this on Friday after presenting oral submissions to the court in the presidential elections case.
Msisha said where is there is a violation of fundamental human rights the Constitutional Court can give effective remedy and not restrict itself to declaring the polls null and void.
“Were that open to possibilities, the court could say those involved in fraud cannot be candidates in the subsequent elections, that the commission that managed the previous elections should not be the commission that manages the next election. Of course that assumes that the elections were null and void and new elections should be run,” said Msisha.
During the interview, the MCP lawyer also faulted the failure by any of the commissioners of the Malawi Electoral Commission to appear before the court in the case and to present evidence of how they resolved the complaints that were raised during the elections.
“Without being asked, the commissioners should have provided minutes on how they handled and resolved complaints but there is no such record,” said Msisha.
He then expressed satisfaction with the progress of the proceedings saying the MCP legal team has presented to the court information which the judges will use to make its decision.
In the elections case, Malawi Congress Party’s Lazarus Chakwera and UTM’s Saulos Chilima want the court to nullify the results of the May 21 presidential elections in which President Peter Mutharika was declared winner.
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