The organisation which takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issued a statement on 1 April 2011 asking the High Court in Malawi to invalidate government's powers over the media. The body says it is concerned about the recent amendment to the Penal Code of Malawi, conferring the minister of information with the power to ban newspapers, magazines, films and other publications.
"Article 19 calls on the High Court to uphold the constitutional challenge to the amendment and invalidate it as unconstitutional," says the London-based body.
"We also call on the Malawian government to respect and protect freedom of expression by ensuring the power to control media content is conferred to an independent self-regulating body, and abolish imprisonment for press-related offences," said the report emailed to Bizcommunity by Article 19 senior legal officer, Boyko Boev.
On 20 January 2011, Malawian President Bingu Wa Mutharika signed into law the amendment to the Penal Code adopted by parliament in November 2010.
The amendment confers on the minister of information powers to prohibit the publication or the importation of such publications, if the minister has reasonable grounds to believe that the publication is contrary to public interest.
On 10 March 2011, the Malawi Human Rights Commission challenged the constitutionality of the amendment before the High Court in Blantyre.
Article 19 observed in the statement that despite national criticism of the government's unrestricted control of the media in Malawi, the latest amendment to the Penal Code does not take away the powers of the minister of information to ban publications. The body says it is seriously concerned about the preservation of these powers since the minister used them on numerous occasions in the past to ban the importation of foreign films and videotapes, magazines, books and music.
The amended Section 46 of the Penal Code, the human rights body says is not in compliance with international freedom of expression standards and should be declared unconstitutional.
