Legal experts are calling for a review of the law on presidential pardons amid growing concern that the clemency power is being misused to shield the undeserving and undermine judicial processes. Section 89(2) of the Constitution gives the President authority to grant pardons. But lawyers and rights advocates say recent decisions suggest the prerogative is being exercised in ways that erode public confidence in the justice system and weaken judicial independence.
They point to a string of controversial pardons in recent years, including a purported December 2025 decision by President Peter Mutharika to pardon six police officers convicted of murdering Buleya Lule, who mysteriously died in police custody in 2019. Lule was accused of abducting a 14-year-old boy with albinsim in Dedza District. According to our sources at prison and others familiar with the system, the six were set free though they were sentenced on 28 February 2025 after a December 2024 conviction.
Several were serving terms of 15 to 20 years and had not served half their sentences when the pardons were granted. The six are Paul Chipole who was serving 20 years, Ikrama Malata; 18 years and Richard Kalawire, Innocent Lwanda, Maxwell Mbuzi and Abel Maseya, who were serving a 15-year jail term. In July 2025, then President Lazarus Chakwera also pardoned businessperson Thom Mpinganjira while his appeal was pending before the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal.
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Mpinganjira was convicted in September 2021 and sentenced to nine years in a case linked to alleged attempts to bribe High Court judges sitting as a Constitutional Court in a 2019 presidential election petition matter. University of Cape Town professor of law Danwood Chirwa on Friday said although the presidential pardon is a constitutionally granted prerogative, it is generally understood that it should not be exercised arbitrarily or for improper purposes. “We [also] saw this with respect to Chakwera’s pardon of Mpinganjira while his appeal was pending before the SCA [Supreme Court of Appeal].” Chirwa argued in an email response that such pardons could never have been intended by the framers of the Constitution. He said: “This current case [of the six police officers] too should have been left to be challenged on appeal and awaited the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal.
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