Parliament has challenged the Malawi Police Service over the arrest of Dedza Mlunduni MP Moses Kunkuyu, escalating the matter into a high-stakes dispute over constitutional limits on police power.
Kunkuyu, also the Malawi Congress Party’s national campaign director, was arrested in Lilongwe on Monday after surrendering himself to police investigating his remarks at the funeral of former First Deputy Speaker Madaitso Kazombo.
Police have charged him with inciting violence, citing a speech in which he used parables to criticise the arrest of MCP secretary general Richard Chimwendo Banda and urged party supporters to mobilise after the burial.
But in a formal letter to the Inspector General of Police, Clerk of Parliament Fiona Kalemba said Kunkuyu is constitutionally protected from arrest while performing parliamentary duties.
Kalemba noted that Kunkuyu is required to attend meetings of the Parliamentary Committee on International Relations, warning that his detention suggests interference with the work of the National Assembly.
Section 60(1) of the Constitution grants MPs immunity from arrest, except in cases of treason, while travelling to, from or within parliamentary proceedings.
Kunkuyu’s lawyer, George Jivason Kadzipatike, said continued detention would amount to governing outside the law, as pressure mounts on police to release the legislator.
