{"id":4344,"date":"2021-08-19T14:09:01","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T14:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio"},"modified":"2021-08-19T14:10:47","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T14:10:47","slug":"retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio","title":{"rendered":"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\">Malawi<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Retired Justice Dunstain Mwaungulu has responded to the controversy over the Supreme Court of Appeal\u2019s decision on death penalty. There are accusations that Mwaungulu smuggled a judgement into the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>But Mwaungulu has described the court\u2019s ruling on the death penalty as legal imbroglio. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines imbroglio as an acutely painful or embarrassing misunderstanding while the learners dictionary says the word means a complex dispute or argument.<\/p>\n<p>In April this year, a panel of nine judges of the Supreme Court ruled that, not only should all prisoners on death row be re-sentenced, but also that no further death sentences should be imposed to anyone in the country.<\/p>\n<p>This followed an appeal by Charles Khoviwa who was in September 2003 convicted of murder and he was sentenced to death. In his appeal, he argued that he was entitled to a re-sentencing hearing. The nine judges heard the appeal and Justice Mwaungulu was given the role of writing the judgement.<\/p>\n<p>Other Justices in the case were Andrew Nyirenda, Edward Twea, Rezine Mzikamanda, Anaclet Chipeta, Lovemore Chikopa and Frank Kapanda. Apart from Twea who dismissed the appeal, the other judges allowed for a re-hearing<\/p>\n<p>However, Justice Anaclet Chipeta said Mwaungulu in the final judgement included pronouncements that were not part of the appeal and on which Mwaungulu did not have any discussion with any of the other eight justices.<\/p>\n<p>Chipeta dissociated himself from other pronouncements by Justice Mwaungulu saying they were made to appear as if they were the opinion of the majority of the Justices of Appeal when they were merely Mwaungulu\u2019s personal opinions. Chipeta dissociated himself from several pronouncements in the ruling including the decision on death penalty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe [Mwaungulu] made the constitutionality of the death penalty in Malawi an issue in the present appeal when it was in fact not an issue, and where he has ended up abolishing the said penalty on the pretext that it is unconstitutional, which was no business of the appeal we had to determine,\u201d wrote Chipeta<\/p>\n<p>The ruling said Justice Twea dissented as he dismissed Khoviwa\u2019s appeal. On his part, Justice Mzikamanda said no party during the appeal or in the High Court raised an issue of the constitutionality of the death penalty.<\/p>\n<p>The Malawi Law Society has since argued that since there was no majority opinion on the death penalty issue, the death penalty is still part of Malawi\u2019s laws as contained in the Penal Code and recognized by Section 16 of the Constitution<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Malawi. Retired Justice Dunstain Mwaungulu has responded to the controversy over the Supreme Court of Appeal\u2019s decision on death penalty. There are accusations that Mwaungulu smuggled a judgement into the Supreme Court. But Mwaungulu has described the court\u2019s ruling on the death penalty as legal imbroglio. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines imbroglio as an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":4342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,12],"tags":[233,371,1833,256,1832,1834,234],"class_list":["post-4344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-malawi","tag-anaclet-chipeta","tag-court","tag-death-penalty","tag-dunstain-mwaungulu","tag-malawi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio - Malawi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Retired Justice Dunstain Mwaungulu has responded to the controversy over the Supreme Court of Appeal\u2019s decision on death ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Retired Justice Dunstain Mwaungulu has responded to the controversy over the Supreme Court of Appeal\u2019s decision on death ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Malawi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-08-19T14:09:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-08-19T14:10:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"727\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-08-19T14:09:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-19T14:10:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio\"},\"wordCount\":433,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Malawi\",\"Anaclet Chipeta\",\"Court\",\"Death penalty\",\"Dunstain Mwaungulu\",\"Malawi\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio\",\"name\":\"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio - Malawi\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-08-19T14:09:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-19T14:10:47+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"description\":\"Retired Justice Dunstain Mwaungulu has responded to the controversy over the Supreme Court of Appeal\u2019s decision on death ...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg\",\"width\":720,\"height\":727,\"caption\":\"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/\",\"name\":\"Malawi\",\"description\":\"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\",\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"cfeditoren\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio - Malawi","description":"Retired Justice Dunstain Mwaungulu has responded to the controversy over the Supreme Court of Appeal\u2019s decision on death ...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio","og_description":"Retired Justice Dunstain Mwaungulu has responded to the controversy over the Supreme Court of Appeal\u2019s decision on death ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio","og_site_name":"Malawi","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa","article_published_time":"2021-08-19T14:09:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-08-19T14:10:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":720,"height":727,"url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"cfeditoren","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"cfeditoren","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio"},"author":{"name":"cfeditoren","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"headline":"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio","datePublished":"2021-08-19T14:09:01+00:00","dateModified":"2021-08-19T14:10:47+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio"},"wordCount":433,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg","keywords":["Africa Press","Africa Press-Malawi","Anaclet Chipeta","Court","Death penalty","Dunstain Mwaungulu","Malawi"],"articleSection":["all news","head lines","homepage-english","policy"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio","name":"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio - Malawi","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg","datePublished":"2021-08-19T14:09:01+00:00","dateModified":"2021-08-19T14:10:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"description":"Retired Justice Dunstain Mwaungulu has responded to the controversy over the Supreme Court of Appeal\u2019s decision on death ...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/malawi\/sites\/36\/2021\/08\/img-611e6615c90df.jpg","width":720,"height":727,"caption":"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/all-news\/retired-justice-mwaungulu-says-supreme-court-decision-on-death-penalty-is-legal-imbroglio#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Retired Justice Mwaungulu says Supreme Court decision on death penalty is legal imbroglio"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/","name":"Malawi","description":"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb","name":"cfeditoren","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"cfeditoren"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/malawi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}