There are emerging views of a sanitized political space, following a landmark ruling by Justice Dorothy Nyakaunda Kamanga.
Kamanga made a ruling that all political differences must be first resolved within the political structures before taking them to the courts.
The judgement followed an appeal application by three DPP Members namely; Kondwani Nankhumwa, Grezelder Jeffrey and Cecelia Chazama who were challenging the judgement by High Court judge Howard Pemba who dismissed the applications by the applicants on the decision by Party’s President Peter Mutharika to switch the three from their different positions.
The High Court Judgement was made last week in Lilongwe, where the court dismissed the application with costs.
And today, the three took the matter to Supreme Court of Appeal so that the court should dismiss the earlier judgement by the High Court and decision by Mutharika to switch the positions for the three.
And when passing her judgement, Kamanga has dismissed the application in its entirety on two grounds that the application has wrong provisions as the applicants were supposed to appeal to the high court before lodging an appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, and that political matters must be resolved at a political level not at the courts.
The rulling has excited the respondents, DPP through its spokesperson Shadreck Namalomba who has told MIJ Online that the case was just wasting the party and courts, as the lower court already dismissed the case saying the application was baseless.
“As a party we are happy with this timely judgement, our call to all our members is to follow the ruling by following proper channels to voice out their concerns,” says Namalomba.
Meanwhile, Ernest Thindwa a political analyst says political parties must follow fundamental principles of democracy to address the internal misunderstandings.
According to Thindwa, it will be easy for political parties to resolve their differences as long as intra-party democracy is being practiced in the parties.
The ruling now means that, no member of any political party can challenge a party decision to the courts, before the matter is heard within the party.