Mike's Day in Court

My Day in the Malawi Court System –

This is one African experience I never thought I’d have – but on May 2nd, I ended up as the “accused” in court. It was only for a traffic offence, but here in Malawi they don’t separate traffic court with criminal court, so I got first hand experience with part of the process that (alleged) criminals go through.

It started the day before when I stopped at the side of the road to pick up Edward, one of our workers, at around 8am. I pulled to the side of the road (but not off the road) and stopped for less than 10 seconds as he got into the vehicle. 50 yards ahead was a police officer who flagged me down and informed me that I had committed a traffic offence (contrary to section 119 of the Malawi Traffic Act). I was obstructing and hindering traffic (even though there was no other traffic that morning because it was a public holiday).

We proceeded to the Zomba police station – I had to give the officer a lift there because the traffic police don’t have vehicles when they are on duty. At the station they wrote out a hand written letter stating my offence and I got to choose to sign it as to whether I admit the charges. I was also given the “you have the right to remain silent…” speech too. In discussion with Edward, he told me that although everyone does it, it is technically illegal to stop on the road, and the police will tend to pick and choose when they might charge someone on it.

So I signed the letter admitting the offence I had committed and my driver’s licence was taken and I was given a form stating that I had a court date the next morning.

The next morning there were about 4 cases to be heard before the judge. The courtroom had rundown overused furniture likely left over from the colonial days. The carpet was musty and there were piles of “stolen goods” – copper wire dug up from the telephone lines – to one side of the courtroom. After waiting for about 45 minutes for the judge to arrive, the cases began.

The first two cases were both criminal theft cases. The first guy took about $5,000 from the local Red Cross office, while the second case was for a guy who had stolen 60 bags of maize and then sold them. In the first case the accused plead guilty so that the sentencing would be softer; in the second case was the preliminary trial and the defendant plead not guilty. In both cases the accused walked up into the defendant’s box at the side of the courtroom and would stand to hear the charges and enter a plea, and then sit for the next few minutes of the proceeding and then have to stand again to hear the verdict/sentencing.

There were about 30 spectators in the courtroom, and when it was my turn to walk up into the defendant’s box, I couldn’t help but feel the stares of everyone watching this “azungu” (white person). I was caught between making sure I heard everything the judge was saying with his African-English accent and making sure I didn’t smirk. It seemed a little unreal in a way – putting in my plea of guilty, feeling like the criminal traffic obstructer that I was.

Sarah warned me ahead of time to not do or say anything stupid (she knows me too well after almost 11 years of marriage) – so I didn’t. The temptation did arise, however, when the judge gave me the option of paying a $15 fine or doing one month in prison with hard labour. It was a tough decision, but I opted for the fine as opposed to the prison life.

I should note that when I e-mailed this day in court story to my older (but not necessarily wiser) brother, he said I should have gone for the 1 month hard labour. “Think about it” he said, “Fresh air, warm sun, exercise, free food, a chance to just get away from it all – why not?” A seemingly convincing argument, but I knew that Sarah would shoot me if I left her alone with the kids for that long….

I had to sit through one more court case after mine – this one was another traffic violation case. Apparently it is against the law here to not have a functioning spare tire on your vehicle. The defendant in this case pled guilty as I did in my case, but he got the option of only a $4 fine or 1 week in prison! I wanted to stand up and protest about my relatively harsh sentence in comparison to this guy, but again I decided to take my wife’s advice and not say anything.

After this case we all got shuffled out of the court room to go pay our fines. I didn’t have $15 cash on me so I explained that I had to go to the bank machine in town first. It was around 10:30 in the morning, so I figured I’d be able to make it back with plenty of time before lunch. I got into town to find out that the two bank machines were both not working, and there was about a twenty minute wait in line in any case. I didn’t have my bank book with me, so I couldn’t go into the bank to withdraw money (and there was a long line there too). Our worker, Edward, was with me so he suggested that we go over to the local Baptist Church in town that he attends and we can ask the pastor there to borrow some money.

I’m sure that the pastor was a little surprised to see this azungu coming in and asking him to borrow money – especially considering it was to pay a fine at the courts. I explained the whole situation, and he was gracious enough to lend me about $10 (that’s all he had on him) and Edward lent me the other $5.

We got back to the court house a little bit after 11am to find out that the cashier office was closed because they went to the bank. I knew they wouldn’t be back until after lunch so I asked the court clerk what I could do. I paid him the money and he wrote me a hand written letter (all the court proceeding documents as well as the documents written up at the police station were hand written) stating that I had paid the money and would be given a receipt later that day. Normally you need an official receipt to show the police before they will give you your licence back.

Back at the police station I presented my letter to the traffic officer and he says, “But it is not stamped with the court official’s stamp – how do I know this is not a forgery? I’m sorry but I can’t accept this.” I knew that by the time I went back to the court house, the guy who wrote my letter would be gone for lunch and considering this was my 6th stop of the morning in this whole process, I decided to go home for lunch and try to wrap all this up in the afternoon.

The afternoon did work out fine. I got to the court house and the court clerk had already processed my official receipt from the cashier’s office and off I went to the police and finally got my licence back. I then went to the bank machine (that was now working) and only had to wait in line for about 10 minutes. I got the money, paid people back and finally got into work at about 3pm.

I had two hours left in the work day, but it felt like I already worked a full day.