One of the ways of breaking the legal cartel is to expand legal training in Malawi. Let Poly have a law school, MUST, MZUNI, even LUANAR.Part of the problem of having a small law school in Zomba is that everyone knows everybody; a generation of lawyers will be buddies because they attended class at the same time and those that weren’t in the same generation are deferential, to a fault, to those that went before them.
And they were all taught by the same people, for the most part, so their outlook closely mirrors one another.Even when they find themselves on opposite sides of the divide, the underlying camaraderie is always there.
That is how corruption in this profession is perpetuated. That is how clients are shortchanged. That is how legal bills are inflated and split among (seemingly) opposing lawyers such that even when the case is lost, the client loses but the lawyers win.
In the region, Malawi is the only country with a single, small, law school, but there is no good reason for this. Until this changes, the cartel will stand intact and continue to wreck havoc.
It should tell you something that the only ‘legal’ voice that has raised serious and compelling questions about the K5 billion that MEC paid to its own lawyers, and the K7 billion bill from the petitioners’ lawyers is Danwood M Chirwa, who, while he was trained in Zomba, does not earn his living in Malawi.
Chonde a president pangani izi. Ma law sukulu afumbule tisamangomva za chanco zokha. Look at mbbs, it started long after law was started but now we have one private university which is also teaching it. Its high time we have competition not corruption.