Horizontal accountability: Bottom-up oversight of public duty bearers in Malawi

• Author: Kuwali, D.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.47348/JCLA/v9/i1a1
• Published date: 21 April 2022
• Date: 21 April 2022
• Citation: (2022) 9(1) Journal of Comparative Law in Africa 1
• Pages: 1-23

1

https://doi.org/10.47348/JCLA/v9/i1a1

HORIZONTAL ACCOUNTABILITY: BOTTOM-UP

OVERSIGHT OF PUBLIC DUTY BEARERS IN

MALAWI

Dan Kuwali*

Chikosa M Silungwe†

Abstract

The principle of public duty requires that public authorities should be held

accountable for their acts, omissions, decisions, policies and use of public resources.

Focusing on Malawi as a country whose democracy has been tried and tested, this

paper locates and dissects the notion of public duty in s 12 of the Constitution of

Malawi as an instrument for horizontal accountability that can be employed by the

citizenry, based on ss 15 and 41 of the Constitution, for more effective and proactive

oversight, as opposed to an ex post facto mechanism exercised by the Ombudsman

in terms of s 123 of the Constitution. The central argument of this paper is that

those who exercise a public duty do so based on people’s sovereignty and they have

an obligation to account to the people for the exercise of State authority. The paper

concludes that public duty is a corollary of democratic accountability, and both

derive from the protection of individual rights and the rule of law.

Keywords: horizontal accountability; good governance; public duty; rule

of law

Résumé

Le principe du devoir public exige que les autorités publiques soient tenues

responsables de leurs actes, omissions, décisions, politiques et abus des ressources

publiques. En se concentrant sur le Malawi, pays dont la démocratie a été testée et

éprouvée, cet article situe et dissèque la notion de devoir public dans la s 12 de la

Constitution du Malawi comme un instrument de responsabilité horizontale, qui

peut être utilisé par les citoyens sur la base des ss 15 et 41 de la Constitution, pour

une surveillance plus efficace et proactive par opposition au mécanisme ex post facto

exercé par l’Ombudsman dans la s 123 de la Constitution. L’argument central

est que ceux qui exercent un devoir public le font sur la base de la souveraineté du

peuple et ont l’obligation de rendre compte au peuple de l’exercice de l’autorité de

* Dan Kuwali holds an LLD (Lund). He is an Extraordinary Professor of Law at the University

of Pretoria, South Africa; Visiting Professor, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and

Humanitarian Law, Sweden; Adjunct Professor and Executive Director, Centre for Strategic Studies,

Malawi University of Science and Technology; Fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy,

Harvard Kennedy School; and Chief of Legal Services and Judge Advocate General, Malawi Defence

Force. E-mail: kuwalidan@gmail.com.

† Chikosa Silungwe holds a PhD (Warwick). He is a Former Attorney General, Government

of the Republic of Malawi and a consultant at the Mizumali Foundation, Lilongwe, Malawi.

E-mail: c.m.silungwe@gmail.com.

(2022) 9(1) Journal of Comparative Law in Africa 1

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2 JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LAW IN AFRICA VOL 9, NO 1, 2022

https://doi.org/10.47348/JCLA/v9/i1a1

l’État. L’ar ticle conclut que le devoir public est un corollaire de la responsabilité

démocratique, et que les deux découlent de la protection des droits individuels et

de l’État de droit.

Mots-clés : Responsabilité horizontale; bonne gouvernance; devoir public;

état de droit

Prologue

A golden thread that runs through the fundamental principles of the

Constitution of the Republic of Malawi (Constitution) is that the power to

govern derives from the people and that all three branches of government,

viz the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, should discharge their

functions in accordance with the express wishes and interests of the

people of Malawi.1 The Constitution has gone beyond representative

democracy to incorporate the notion of participatory democracy as one

of its fundamental principles.2 The concept of participatory democracy

hinges on the decision-making process and its legitimacy, that is to say,

valid decisions by those in power should emanate from the electorate.3

The Constitution recognises several fundamental principles that anchor

the country’s democracy. These constitutional principles include the rule

of law, checks and balances, social contract, legality, transparency and

governmental accountability.4

Although the Constitution contains a comprehensive catalogue of

human rights and fundamental principles, the implementation of these

constitutional tenets is wanting, especially where powerholders disregard

the ‘express wishes’ of the general public, or where parliamentarians are

driven by political interests, as opposed to the interests or wishes of their

electorate, as required by s 8 of the Constitution. A classic example is

the repealing of s 64 of the Constitution, which subjected members of

parliament (MPs) to recall by their electorates when they lost the latter’s

confidence. In administrative justice, public duty requires that those who

wield public power or perform public functions are held accountable in

the exercise of their powers and functions.5

1 See ss 7 and 8 of the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi (Constitution).

2 See ss 6 and 12 of the Constitution. See also Chirwa, D.M. Human Rights under the Malawian

Constitution (2011) at 15.

3 Kuwali, D. ‘Good governance or government reform? – Transfor ming governmentality in

Malawi’ (2011) 5(2) Malawi Law Journal at 139–147.

4 See ss 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 43, 108 and 199 of the Constitution. See also Chirwa, D.M. ‘Liberating

Malawi’s administrative justice jurisprudence from its common law shackles’ (2011) 55(1) Journal of

African Law 105–127 at 106.

5 Kapindu, R.E. & Kanyongolo, F.E. ‘The state of administrative law in Malawi: Systems, structures

and emerging issues’ in Corder, H. & Mavedzenge, J. Pursuing Good Governance: Administrative Justice

in Common-Law Africa (2019) 67–91 at 76.

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