Mutharika wants to join opposition leader case

Interim leader of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Peter Mutharika has applied to the High Court in Blantyre to join a case in which his party sued the Speaker of Parliament for failing to recognise him as leader of opposition.

Addressing the court on Tuesday, his lawyer Kalekeni Kaphale said apart from the DPP, Mutharika would also want to join the case since his name was presented to Parliament to recognise him as leader of opposition.

“Professor Mutharika wants to join the case as second applicant; we are not doing that because others believe that the DPP has no capacity to sue,” Kaphale said in an interview outside the court.

Principal State Advocate Steven Kayuni, who is representing the Speaker, asked the court that the judicial review matter should be dismissed because the DPP has no legal mandate to sue.

“It is clear that leave to apply for judicial review in this matter was granted to a non-entity thereby making these proceedings a nullity from the beginning and a waste of court’s time,” Kayuni told the court.

There were three applications that were presented in the morning before Judge Anaclet Chipeta.

Kayuni wanted the court to dismiss leave for judicial review case while Kaphale wanted the court to hear the judicial review, Mutharika’s application to join the case and Kayuni’s application.

But Chipeta ruled that the court should hear only two applications: that of Kayuni and Mutharika’s application.

The judge would make his ruling on November 9.

The DPP challenged the Speaker’s failure to act on its communication of June 25, 2012, advising him of its election of Mutharika as leader of the opposition and recognise him such in line with Standing Order 3 (3).

The laws stipulate that the leader of opposition should come from the largest opposition party in parliament but things changed when the DPP became the largest opposition party following the death of President Bingu Mutharika.