Court Dismisses Chilima Applications

The Constitutional Court sitting in Lilongwe has today Friday the 9th of August, 2019 dismissed three applications from former Vice President Dr Saulos Klaus Chilima in which he applied to the court to stop any interpretations of the proceedings into Chichewa.

The court ruled that the whole country has an interest in the outcome of the proceedings, and that includes the majority of voters who do not understand english. The court, upheld the arguments by lawyers representing President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika that taking off the Chichewa language from the proceedings will mean that the majority of the voters will not be able to follow the proceedings.
Commentators have expressed dissatisfaction with the application by Chilima arguing that his move to exclude Chichew from the proceedings which are being broadcast live, is aimed at hiding the truth from the rural masses who have been misled by many allegations regarding the election.

The court has also dismissed an application by Chilima and Chakwera to control cross examination by the Attorney General, which is leading the former Vice President insane due to the grilling approach that the Attorney General has taken. In a reling delivered by Justice Kapindu, the court threw out the applications and ordered that the trial proceeds as has been the case from the start.

In the course of the hearing, Dr Chilima’s lawyers applied to the court to stop the Attorney General from asking Chilima to bring various documents to the courts, arguing that the demand was inconsistent with the law. The court however ruled that the Attorney General was within his rights to ask for the documents since the said documents have already been filed with the court.

In a rather twist of events, Dr Chilima has told the court that that the much touted Tippex didnot affect the results of the Presidential Election.

Chilima, who is the First Petitioner, has further told the court that he has no complaint against the figures of votes cast on May 21.

Chilima who is the first petitioner, also told the court that the use of unoriginal tally sheets that he used to challenge the Presidential Election did not affect any of his votes. Dr Chilima told the court that he observed that over 95% of the alterations were only correcting statistical errors and did not affect any votes.

“I can confirm that here were no votes that were wrongly quantified,” Chilima said.

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