By Chisomo Phiri
Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Justice Dorothy Nyakaunda has nailed a last nail by throwing out the application by Kondwani Nankhumwa, Grezelder Jeffrey and Cecilia Chazama who were challenging Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Peter Mutharika’s decision to remove them from their positions in the party.
The trio wanted an interim relief against Mutharika’s decision as well as a nullification of the resolutions made during a national governing council meeting held on December 13, 2023 in Mangochi.
However, on Wednesday afternoon Nyakaunda thrown out the application with costs.
Nyakaunda told indicated that the Supreme Court’s ruling sustains the ruling of the High Court which last week also dismissed a similar application by the trio.
High Court Judge Howard Pemba said the trio’s political rights were not violated by Mutharika’s decisions.
Last month, Mutharika appointed Kondwani Nankhumwa as presidential advisor after removing him from his position as vice president-south.
The DPP leader also removed Cecilia Chazama from her position as director of women and appointed her as presidential advisor while the party’s secretary general Grezelder Jeffrey was appointed as vice president-centre.
In their challenge , the three argued that Mutharika has no power to remove them from their original positions because they were elected to the positions during the party’s convention in 2018.
When re-assigning the three, Mutharika said he used Article 10(8) of the DPP constitution which says the president has powers to assign a member of DPP national governing council to any public or political office.
Many political and governance experts agree that DPP’s talk of returning to power will remain a far-fetched dream if these conflicts are not timely addressed.
