April 3 2024
Dear Diary,
Pardon, they say, is the best gift one can ever get. Not only does it give you a second chance, it gives you time to reflect on the reality of your mistakes.
Over the Eastertide, President Lazarus Chakwera pardoned 49 prisoners as part of the season to remember Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. A release indicated that the President has pardoned the elderly, the critically ill, those whose time in jail is about to and others of good conduct.
For many years prisoners have been granted clemency during times like Independence Day, Christmas and New Year, among others.
Malawi prisons have been deemed inhumane by a number of institutions. Even the Malawi Prisons Inspectorate made the same finding in 2021.
The food is unpalatable, leading to malnutrition, with those on TB and ART treatment suffering the most. The prison cells are overcrowded, with the infamous shamba! It is estimated that our prisons are overcrowded by 278 percent. That way, skin diseases like scabies are rampant.
True to our being, Malawians are in the habit of flouting the very international covenants we are party to. For instance, we don’t care that failure to provide rehabilitation facilities amounts to a breach of article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
But then, the argument has always been that why should murderers, rapists, robbers and other criminals be treated with a human heart.
As I write, Dear Diary, Soche police have netted three men suspected to have shot a man with an AK47 to steal a plasma TV set, phone and K100 000.
Not long ago, a 79-year-old granny was apprehended for the alleged death of her seven-year-old grand-child whose arms she scorched for eating kanyenya. Before we get over that, we hear a Zomba woman killed her husband by attacking him in the private parts because he was scolding her for her juga addiction.
Dear Diary, you haven’t heard the worst. Zodiak Broadcasting Station some five hours ago posted that about ‘26 shirt-less men putting on boxers only invaded Chinseu Trading Centre in Zomba, robbing business people and hacking anyone in sight at will. Heinous!
And then, a Dedza police officer shot dead his girlfriend and fired at himself to avoid prison.
So, when we think about prison we think about these hard core criminals, forgetting that the prisons have people like Evans Moyo, a boy I once met who was in Chichiri Prison for years on end, waiting for the pleasure of the President to be upon him. Mind you, minors are not supposed to be in such places.
Then, the other year, I was in the female section of the Dedza Prison where there was an inmate with three toddlers. When she entered the prison, she had two children aged below three. The law stipulates that toddlers under three should accompany their mothers in jail, for bonding.
The third was born while she was incarcerated, as she was imprisoned pregnant. As far as I can remember, the crime she committed could have called for any sensible magistrate to impose a non-custodial sentence. Probably, she missed a presidential pardon!
These presidential pardons for prisoners will not make sense if there is no transparency on how they are conducted. In this particular case, why couldn’t we have the Prisons Department make public the full list of pardoned prisoners, what crimes they committed, how much of their sentence have they served and why was clemency granted.
The other year, it was found that one of those pardoned was the President’s relative who had just been convicted for rape. Little has changed.
The ministries of Justice, Homeland Security, Gender, the Attorney General, the Police and Prisons work out who should be released. Some politically-connected but undeserving prisoners may end up getting clemency.
By the way, at some point there was a fight to review the guidelines for pardons. Where is the issue now? And, by the way, a prisoner who was incarcerated at Maula Prison 15 years ago and is released, how will he get back to his home in Chikwawa with no coin in his hands?
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