Every modern democracy accepts one basic truth: power must be matched with accountability. Without it, authority mutates into arrogance, and public institutions drift from service into self-protection.
That is why Malawians deliberately created the Independent Complaints Commission (ICC) to oversee the police. Not because we hate the police, but because history has taught us that coercive power without civilian oversight inevitably leads to abuse. The ICC exists to protect both citizens and the integrity of the police service itself.
In the health sector, we established a Hospital Ombudsman. Its effectiveness may be imperfect, and its structures weak, but its existence reflects an important principle: no public service, however professional, should be immune from scrutiny.
Within the Executive, the Office of the Ombudsman is one of the most respected constitutional bodies in Malawi. It has exposed maladministration, overturned unlawful decisions, and defended ordinary citizens against the abuse of authority. I speak not theoretically, but personally: I am a direct beneficiary of its constitutional mandate.
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Yet one institution remains conspicuously shielded from meaningful external oversight: the Judiciary.
This is not just an institutional gap. It is a constitutional contradiction.
The Judiciary is not above the Constitution. It is created by it, funded by it, and exists to serve its purposes. Judicial independence was never intended to mean judicial perfection, and certainly not judicial immunity. Obadwa aliyense amalakwitsa -- everyone makes mistakes. Judges are human beings operating within a human system.
To insist that judges should never be externally questioned is to confuse independence with infallibility. Independence protects courts from political pressure; it does not place them beyond public accountability.
No other arm of government enjoys such unchecked authority. Police officers are investigated. Civil servants are disciplined. Ministers are audited. Even the President can be impeached. Yet judges, whose decisions can destroy livelihoods, families, freedoms and reputations, operate in a system where complaints are largely internal, opaque, and inaccessible to ordinary citizens.
This imbalance is not sustainable in a constitutional democracy.
What Malawi urgently needs is a strong, independent Legal or Judicial Council with real powers to review judicial conduct, investigate credible complaints, and scrutinise manifestly unjust or controversial rulings -- without interfering with judicial independence or reopening cases on political grounds.
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Such a body would not weaken the courts. It would strengthen them.
Accountability and independence are not enemies; they are constitutional partners. One gives authority legitimacy. The other gives it discipline. Without both, the rule of law becomes either tyranny or theatre.
The silence surrounding judicial accountability is deeply troubling. As a nation, we are bold when questioning the police. We challenge doctors. We criticise teachers. We audit politicians. But when it comes to judges, we retreat into fear, reverence and legal mysticism.
This culture of untouchability is dangerous.
A Judiciary that cannot be questioned risks losing the very public trust on which its power depends. Courts do not command armies. They command belief. And belief is sustained not by secrecy, but by transparency and accountability.
Judicial oversight is not an attack on the courts. It is an investment in their legitimacy. A system that allows no correction invites decay. A system that welcomes scrutiny invites credibility.
If Malawi is serious about constitutionalism, then no institution -- not even the Judiciary -- should be beyond the reach of principled, lawful, and independent oversight.
Because in a democracy, even those who interpret the law must remain subject to it.
