Malawi Police Service (MPS) has reported a conviction rate of 74.52 percent for criminal cases it brought to court between 2021 and 2023, effectively reducing the number of remandees, Nation on Sunday has established.

An analysis of the police cases shows that in the period under review, 45 232 cases were taken to court, resulting in 33 710 convictions, representing 74.52 percent conviction rate. This was out of 69 916 cases that the MPS’ prosecution branch registered during the period.

Of the cases taken to court, 4 453 were withdrawn representing 9.8 percent, 2 809 were acquitted representing 6.21 percent while 4 226 got discharged, representing 9.34 percent, a situation MPS attributes to its commitment to justice and a fair, transparent legal process.

But the proportion of the convictions to the number of cases handled overall is slightly lower, standing at 48.21 percent.

The high conviction rate means there has been a reduction in a backlog of all criminal cases and has, in turn, also reduced congestion of remandees across prisons and reformatory institutions.

But despite this success, the carryover of cases from previous years has been growing annually for the past two years.

For instance, 9 471 cases were carried over from 2021 to 2022, 11 438 were carried from 2022 to 2023 and 13 246 have been carried over to 2024 from the previous year.

Despite the progress made on prosecutions, independent human rights bodies have pointed out that the growing number of carryover cases presents a challenge that demands serious attention.

Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance executive director Victor Mhango on Wednesday said to ensure continued progress and quick disposal of cases, various reforms should be considered such as increase in resources, financing and personnel in the prosecution branch.

According to the 2023 MPS Annual Report, 41 aid prosecutors were trained that year in the prosecution basic training course at Zomba Police College to boost their prosecution expertise.

Part of the report reads: “However, there is a need to train more prosecutors since the [prosecution] branch is remaining with a large number of untrained aid prosecutors. In addition, more qualified prosecutors need to undergo specialised training in the areas of financial crimes and sexual and gender-based violence”.

Mhango said to reduce the caseload, it would be imperative for prosecution officers’ work to be exclusive of other police duties.

He said prosecutors should be solely assigned prosecution duties, avoiding deployment to other tasks that may affect their performance.

Said Mhango: “There is also a need to provide regular training and capacity building for prosecutors and investigators to improve their skills. This will not only increase the conviction rates but also hasten prosecution.

“Other than investing in prosecution, there is also a need to increase acceptance of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to reduce the workload on the courts and prosecution”

Inspector General of Police Merlyne Yolamu in her preamble in the 2023 MPS Annual Report, said the progress being made in convictions shows the law enforcers commitment to justice while the acquittals, withdrawals and discharges indicate a fair and transparent legal process.

But Human Rights Consultative Committee chairperson Robert Mkwezalamba said in a separate interview on Wednesday that despite progress made on the convictions, more needs to be done in disposing of criminal cases as witnessed with the carryover cases from previous years.

“The challenge remains that they have a backlog and from my view, this comes from two factors. The first is low numbers of staff within the police service and the second may be the existing vacancies in the Judiciary pertaining to magistrates and judges.

“Both sides need to address these issues because they may impede the delivery of justice in the country,” he said