41 MPs obtain court order to restrain Malawi parliament

APA-Lilongwe (Malawi) With only hours away from being chased out of parliament, 41 opposition members of the Malawi parliament who defected to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have obtained a court order restraining the House from declaring their seats vacant. Speaker of Parliament Louis Chimango was expected to declare the MPs’ seat vacant on Friday following a Supreme Court of Appeal decision that the lawmakers’ defection was illegal; therefore their seats should be declared vacant pending by-elections. Parliament, reconvening its session Friday after a month-long mourning of the late first lady Ethel Mutharika, is sitting to discuss the 2007/08 national budget.

Fearing their pending expulsion, former ruling United Democratic Front’s MP Yunus Mussa and 40 other former opposition MPs, successfully applied to the High Court for an order to stop the speaker from declaring their seats vacant.

High Court Judge Justice Singini granted them the injunction late on Thursday.

The move effectively stops Chimango from going ahead to declare the defectors’ seats as being vacant for now.

Singini’s injunction, however, is being challenged by opposition lawyers Ralph Kasambara and Kalekeni Kaphale of the UDF and Titus Mvalo representing the Malawi Congress Party (MCP).

"We shall see each other in court today (Friday) because we are challenging the applications. What we want is the speaker to go ahead to declare the (defectors’) seats vacant,” Kasambara, a former Attorney General dismissed by President Mutharika last year, said.