Africa-Press – Malawi. President Lazarus Chakwera has not assented to the Political Parties Amendment Bill after the National Assembly passed it and presented it to him for assent.
During the December meeting of Parliament, the august House passed the bill, which empowers the State to, on quarterly basis, provide funds to a political party represented in the National Assembly. The funding is meant to cater for that political party’s day-to-day activities, including election expenses.
The Republican Constitution stipulates that a party that does not have 10 percent representation in the august House falls short of representing people, hence there is no need for taxpayers to, through the State, fund it.
Chakwera’s dissension of the bill follows articles by Malawi News, which exposed how ‘sleeping’ members of Parliament (MPs) passed the bill. In our story on Saturday, Leader of the House Richard Chimwendo Banda admitted that there were lapses in passing the bill.
However, Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament Chairperson Albert Mbawala shifted the blame to the Clerk of Parliament (CoP), accusing the CoP of failing to properly scrutinise the Private Members’ Bill.
The legislators also came under fire from the Malawi Law Society (MLS), which said, by passing the bill, the MPs only showed that they were representing themselves and their families.
Thursday, Presidential Press Secretary Anthony Kasunda said in a statement that Chakwera had dissented to the bill but assented to several other bills.
“His Excellency Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of the Republic of Malawi, in exercise of powers vested in him by Section 89 of the Constitution, has dissented to Private Members’ Bill No. 1 of 2023: Political Parties (Amendment) for its non-compliance with Section 40(2) of the Constitution,” the statement reads.
At the same time, Chakwera has assented to Bill No. 20 of 2023: Ombudsman (Amendment); Bill No. 21 of 2023: Electronic Transactions and Cyber Security (Amendment); Bill No. 22 of 2023: Data Protection; Bill No. 23 of 2023: Persons with Disabilities.
Other proposed pieces of legislation he has nodded to are Bill No. 24 of 2023: Tobacco Industry; Bill No. 25 of 2023: Investment and Export Promotion; Bill No. 26 of 2023: International Arbitration; Bill No. 27 of 2023: Special Economic Zones and Bill No. 29 of 2023: Appropriation (Amendment).
Patrick MpakaMeanwhile, MLS President Patrick Mpaka has, while commending Chakwera for checking on Parliament, asked legislators to draw a lesson from the development and conduct themselves in a manner befitting legislators.
“On this occasion, the President has provided appropriate and responsible checks on Parliament. This is how the three branches of government need to operate.
“We hope that our parliamentarians [will] pick up the lesson to abide by [provisions of] the Constitution because public resources were, no doubt, spent on such an, otherwise, not very useful exercise,” Mpaka said.
In a previous interview, Mpaka said the bill, in its current state, does not stand because of inconsistencies with the Republican Constitution. He added that the amendment runs contrary to the Constitution in the sense that if a party does not have 10 percent representation, then it falls short to represent people, hence no need for taxpayers to fund it.
“The authority to govern derives from the people through universal and equal suffrage, according to Section 6 of the Constitution. So, if, as a political party, you cannot get even one-tenth of the voice of the people, who are you representing”
“You are representing yourself and your clique of friends and family. A political party must have some national presence, and acceptance seems to be the idea behind such laws. You cannot be getting people’s money to fund your family business disguised as a political party. That is the spirit of Section 40(2) of the Constitution. The amendment to the Political Parties Act made by Parliament runs contrary to that constitutional spirit,” Mpaka said.
Michael KaiyatsaIn an interview Thursday, executive director for Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation Michael Kaiyatsa also hailed Chakwera for dissenting to the bill.
“Assenting to this bill would have been a retrogressive step, considering that some of its provisions are inconsistent with the Constitution,” Kaiyatsa said.
“This bill needs to be returned to the Speaker of the National Assembly as per Section 73 of the Constitution. It needs further scrutiny to remove all the problematic provisions and ensure that it is fully aligned with the Constitution,” Kaiyatsa said.
Analysts said last week that the passing of the bill showed that MPs slept on the job and that they were ignorant of provisions of their own Constitution.
On the other hand, Mbawala said: “So, it is not that the committee slept on the job; no. The authorities, Clerk of Parliament, did not do the needful and the bill was rushed through.”
And, on his part, Chimwendo Banda indicated that while this was a Private Members’ Bill and that the government side could not do anything about it, the House could have detected the anomaly and referred the bill to the Legal Affairs Committee.
When the bill was passed, Zomba Ntonya law maker Ned Poya, who brought the bill to Parliament, described the development as “a great day for democracy” in the country.
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