Justice

Malawi’s legal aid system is crucial for ensuring access to justice, particularly for the poor and vulnerable.  The Legal Aid Bureau (LAB) is the primary provider of legal aid and has a special place NWT’s heart as this was where Nick was working when he died. 

The Legal Aid Bureau faces many challenges, with funding being a key issue; the Legal Aid Bureau relies on government and external donor funding which makes it vulnerable to funding gaps and fluctuations.  Underfunding also makes it difficult to recruit and retain legal professionals and other support staff which has an impact on providing timely and effective legal assistance.   

As well as working to strengthen the Legal Aid Bureau, NWT has also partnered with the Women Lawyers Association of Malawi, an organisation of female lawyers dedicated to upholding the rights of women and children, particularly those facing gender-based violence and discrimination.

Law Scholarship Programme

From 2005 to 2014, we provided scholarships for highly motivated law students which covered fees and maintenance for the full four years of the degree programme.  Our funding was conditional on recipients working at the Legal Aid Bureau (then Legal Aid Department) as interns in their university vacations and full-time for three years after graduation.  Over that time, we sponsored 5 students through their law degrees.

Since 2015 the government has restructured the provision of Legal Aid under a new Legal Aid Bureau. We are currently working with them to improve the contribution we can make to access to justice in Malawi.

We are currently working on a new scheme to improve the contribution we make to access to justice in Malawi through the Legal Aid Department.

Legal Aid Library

We have provided the Legal Aid Department offices in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe,  with a well stocked law library. We provided the furniture and a computer. We sourced and shipped hundreds of relevant books and instructional DVDs, mostly donated by English law firms and colleges.

At the opening ceremony in August 2007, the library was unique in the country. The Malawian Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs described it as “a noble contribution” that “will go a long way towards making access to justice a meaningful concept to the majority of our citizens”. Bill Clinton praised our library in his 2007 book, ‘Giving’.

Since then, another organisation has donated a substantial library to the Malawi Law Society offices in Blantyre. We are very pleased that the legal profession in Malawi is now much better resourced than it was when we began our work.

Chancellor College Library

At a time when the law library at Chancellor College, where most Malawian lawyers train, was significantly under-stocked, we sourced and shipped multiple copies of books used on their degree programmes.  We are pleased that this situation has now been substantially improved by aid from elsewhere.  We continue to work with the Director of the Bar School to investigate ways in which we can contribute further in this field.

Safe-house for women

In 2020 we were approached by the Women Lawyers Association of Malawi to help them to build a drop-in law centre and safe-house in the capital city, Lilongwe, to support women and children fleeing domestic violence. They requested that we raise £20,000 to enable them to buy land and construct a basic facility where women can be offered a safe place to stay until a longer-term option is found. It was decided that, for reasons of confidentiality, the offices and the refuge should not be on the same premises, and another charity successfully pursued the establishment of offices.

Meanwhile NWT purchased a plot of land on a newly developing area on the edge of the city and funded the construction of the safe house. This ambitious project took a little while (and inevitably faced delays because of covid, and an eventual cost of around £60,000) but we were delighted when the refuge opened its doors in January 2023. The safe-house has four large bedrooms, each capable of  housing a family while they make more permanent arrangements.

We are thrilled that the Women Lawyers Association have secured ongoing funding for running costs of the law centre and safe-house from the Clooney Foundation, and that a local psychotherapy centre is now providing social and emotional counselling to support the legal advice offered.