On Thursday 12 June Malawi's highest court, the Supreme Court of Appeal finally granted American pop diva Madonna the right to adopt a second child from the country after a barrage of disapprovals from human rights activists who argued Madonna was not eligible of adopting another child from Malawi.
Madonna has since the adoption of David dragged Malawi into the centre of world attention due to her adoption gestures. Just prior to her visit to Malawi to adopt James, the Western media were laden with news about her adoption bid. The pop diva is now mother to two Malawian children, David Banda and Mercy James.
Supreme court Chief Justice Lovemore Munro said in his ruling that in the view of the Court, Chifundo James is better taken care of by being adopted by foreign parents who will give her ultimate love and affection. Munro further said Madonna was financially stable and could care for the three-year-old, whose name means Mercy. Therefore the court granted Madonna the adoption right.
It may not be very needful to resuscitate the Madonna issue now, but for the sake of posterity it cannot be completely wiped out. The Supreme Court ruling was after the High Court had blocked Madonna's adoption bid, saying that she had failed to meet an 18-month residency requirement in Malawi. Here is where laws regarding child adoption become ambiguous.
It beats any sound mind which are the best interpretations of our laws and how such interpretations matter in the legal fraternity. When Madonna adopted David Banda in 2006, that requirement which the High Court used to block the us diva’s adoption bid was waived but child welfare groups still argued that the residency rule was central to adoptions, and that it could not be compromised.
Malawian parents should be sought before placing children overseas, the groups argued. However this argument tends to imply that if no Malawian parents come forward to offer to adopt vulnerable Malawian children then international adoptions might come in.
Again there was a lot of fuss over Madonna’s bid to adopt another vulnerable child from Malawi, mainly from human rights activists. Of course these activists might still not be satisfied, but the fact of the matter is that they do not have any option now that the highest court of the land has made the final ruling.
The whole issue is now a dead letter. But the fact of the matter appears to be how laws that govern the adoption of children in Malawi are being interpreted by members of the law fraternity. Law is one of the recognized noble professions in Malawi because, on one part, its applications deal with human life. The implication is that a lawyer may or may not save the life of a person who has been hauled up before a court of law and might be sentenced to death if not defended competently.
It is for this reason that due to the intensity of the case, individuals with certain law qualifications may or may not be eligible to handle some cases. Now the Madonna cases have created some doubts as to whether Malawi laws are followed with the application of similar or at least similar interpretations, or they can easily adjust according to the situation.
The interpretation of a number of provisions in the legal system continues to be a matter that is never complete. Lawyers oftentimes tend to differ on the interpretations, yet they all deem their understandings to be the most proper. Legal language is a kind of language that elevates the normal level of language clarity to one which becomes filled with terrible ambiguities.
Professional translators fail to come with clear translations because different understandings are created, stemming from the ambiguities. Translation of the same legal document into the same target language, at least in Malawi, is bound to bring forth different finished products of the same with different meanings.
It might be the ambiguities that are there in our legal provisions that prompt one judge to find innocent an individual who was initially convicted by another court of law. Usually the lower courts are said to have erred in their judgments, which begs the question of when one may know whether the lower court has erred or not. It is no denying fact that the only court of law that does not err in its rulings is the Supreme Court.
Well, the aspect of natural justice is significant in law, especially where aspects of moral axioms are deemed to be present. But this aspect needs not to undermine the documented provisions which are already clear.
It is also quite true that no legal provision operates independently without other references and attachments. But the references and attachments need to be in concurrence with the legal provision, not to crush it. There are a number of legal provisions in our constitutions that are filled with so many ambiguities that one wonders which one is their right interpretation.
Most of them come into focus when someone wants to crush an argument that has been advanced by their opponent. It is also the ambiguities of the legal provisions which results in cases taking so much time to be concluded.
Perhaps the Malawi Law Commission needs to do something so that the laws are clear, just for the sake of the future, in case Madonna comes again to adopt another child.
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