IN THE HIGH COURT OF MALAWI
LILONGWE DISTRICT REGISTRY
CIVIL CASE NO 448 OF 2003
BETWEEN :
EMMANUEL ALUFAZEMA .PLAINTIFF
And
LILONGWE CITY ASSEMBLY .DEFENDANT
CORAM: HON. JUSTICE A.K.C. NYIRENDA
Mr Mwale; Counsel for the Defendant
Mr Gonaulinji; Court Interpreter
R U L I N G
HON. JUSTICE A.K.C. NYIRENDA
The plaintiff on this matter lost the case by judgment of this court dated 25th October 2004. As it turns out, which seems to be a fact from what both the plaintiff and the defendant have told the court, the judgment was not read in open court but merely distributed to counsel, including counsel who was representing the plaintiff. According to the plaintiff his lawyers did not inform him of the outcome of the case which he only became aware of on his own inquiry with the court. He only managed to get a copy of the judgment in March 2005 and there upon he decided to make the present application seeking to appeal out of time.
Judgments, as a matter of procedure, are supposed to be read in open court, first and foremost, to ensure that all interested parties attend to their fate in person. Before the date of judgment notices are sent out to ensure that all those that are concerned have been made aware of the moment of judgment and if they decide not to attend let that be out of their choice, secondly, this procedure also ensures that the parties collect copies of the judgment in order to decide whether to take further steps or not mindful of the periods set for appeals. One problem we have in the instant case is that we cannot say when time started running for purposes of notices of appeal because it cannot, with absolute certainty, be said when the judgment was given to the parties. Unless a judgment is read out in open court it is not legally possible for the court to say exactly at what point a litigant was informed of the outcome of his or her case. We cannot therefore fault or contradict the applicant when he says he only became aware of the judgment around March, 2005 and in May 2005 lodged the present application.
The applicant is therefore meritorious and is allowed. The applicant is allowed to appeal out of time and the time starts running from today the date of this ruling.
MADE in Chambers this 15th day of June, 2005.
A.K.C. Nyirenda
J U D G E