The 1994 Malawian Constitution is unique in that it, among other things, recognizes administrative justice as a fundamental right and articulates the notion of constitutional supremacy. This right and the idea of constitutional supremacy have important implications for Malawi's administrative law, which was hitherto based on the common law inherited from Britain. This article highlights the difficulties that Malawian courts have faced in reconciling the right to administrative justice as protected under the new constitution with the common law. In doing so, it offers some insights into what the constitutionalization of administrative justice means for Malawian administrative law. It is argued that the constitution has altered the basis and grounds for judicial review so fundamentally that the Malawian legal system's marriage to the English common law can be regarded as having irretrievably broken down as far as administrative law is concerned.

Women all over the world have experienced discrimination and victimisation. However, the level of suffering women in Africa experience far exceeds imaginable proportions. Trapped between the unholy matrimony of poverty and harsh economic conditions, dictatorial regimes, religious beliefs, and cultural and traditional practices, women in Africa have been subjected to some of the worst forms of gender-based violence, abuse, victimisation, prejudice and oppression. Yet, women are at the same time the symbol of love and so central to the maintenance of African ways of life. The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights was criticised for its failure to maintain a proper balance between women's rights and African tradition. This article argues that the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (African Women's Protocol) adopted by the African Union on 11 July 2003 to beef up the protection of women's rights on the continent is amenable to a similar criticism. While it deals with many important issues affecting African women, it fails to articulate a clear or consistent African approach to women's rights. As a result, it is difficult to reconcile the Protocol with the existing body of jurisprudence in the regional human rights system as developed under the African Charter and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

CHIRWA, DANWOOD MZIKENGE, A full loaf is better than half: the constitutional protection of economic, social and cultural rights in Malawi, Journal of African Law, 49, 2 (2005): 207–241

The last two decades have seen a new wave of constitution-making in Africa as many countries changed from autocracy to democracy. Malawi followed the trend by adopting a new Constitution in 1994 to mark the end of a 30-year, dictatorial one-party regime. This Constitution breaks with traditional constitutions by recognizing economic, social and cultural rights. However, few of these rights are entrenched in the Bill of Rights as justiciable rights. The rest are enshrined as unenforceable principles of national policy. These provisions and the jurisprudence they have generated thus far are discussed critically. It is argued that while the Malawian Constitution deserves acclaim for recognizing these rights, the model adopted for protecting them fails to give full effect to the notion of the indivisibility of all rights and is not good enough for a poor country, which is also in transition to democracy. Not only was Malawi's choice of this model not preceded by a careful and reasoned examination of the existing models and the local circumstances, it was also made without wide public consultations. The ways, based on the existing constitutional provisions, in which the protection of these rights can be improved are explored.