It has been revealed MCP top gurus have engaged their lawyers to lay down Articles of Impeachment against the Vice President Dr Saulosi Chilima following his arrest on Friday.
Inside sources say their arguments against Chilima popularly known as SKC must be indicted based on the serious violations of the constitution and written laws as ACB charges have risen to the levels of impeachable offences
According to the constitution, the President and Vice President can be removed from office only when indicted and convicted by impeachment.
Section 2(a) says: Indictment and conviction by impeachment shall only be on the grounds of serious violation of the Constitution or serious breach of the written laws of the Republic that either occurred or came to light during the term of office of the President or the First Vice-President;
But seasoned legal expert has argued that the Constitution has not named the crimes that someone has to be removed from office therefore bringing impeachment charges based on what has been placed before the court is just a conjecture. They have forgotten that there huge difference between criminal law and impeachment.
“The framers of the constitution made a huge constitutional errors by not laying down the impeachable offences in the constitution as many countries do because it is impractical to remove someone from his position without a quoting a crime.
“We have criteria of choosing the President and Vice President, MPs and other elected political and public officers but why must we be denied the same privileges the criteria of of removing someone from office using the same laws, legal expert,” the wondered.
He said much as bribery and corruption can be an impeachable offences because they violate public trust in other countries but in Malawi the constitution is silent and it will give these MCP lawyers a tough job to do,” the he said.
He added that we must put crimes that violates that public trust first in the Constitution as other countries operate.
It will just be hypothetical for now to talk much because we have not seen their arguments and the crimes they have organized.
The legal expert further said that constitutional lawyers will argue that National Assembly can not be the prosecutor and at the same time be the judge because one thing that is clear in law is the spirit of “taking law into your hands” to be the accuser and at the same time be the judge. In normal situations, it would need separate Body like the Senate to convict or acquit him and not the same Body which has indicted him to be prosecutor, jury and the judge. It does not work like that.
He added to say even at a village level, when some is accused of grabbing the land of someone, the case has to go the Chief to preside over and not the accuser themselves.
The indictment on impeachment require the affirmative vote of the two- thirds of the members of the National Assembly in the committee if the whole house and the conviction also require the affirmative vote of the two- thirds of the members of the National Assembly.
It is yet to be known if MCP can amass 128 votes in the National Assembly for them to impeach Chilima.
Chilima needs to be impeached..mwana opusa uyu. Ife tinaziona kale kuti awa ali ng’anjo mwa mikango
The word of God is clear, Muyezo umene ukumuyezera mnzako, iwenso adzakuyezera womwewo. Were it not for Chilima, lero DPP ikulamulirabe. He is the one who went to court to impeach a democratically elected government. Kumuyipisira mbiri m’busa Jane Ansah. Ngati mawu aMulungu akunena lamulo ili, Chilima will not escape, he will indeed be impeached. He used a wrong measure on APM, the same measure is now back to him.