The High Court in Blantyre has today reserved its ruling on appeal case made by the newly formed United Transformation Movement (UTM) against registrar of political party’s decision to reject registration of a grouping as a party.
UTM which is led by the country’s Vice President Dr. Saulos Chilima was refused to register as political party last month on grounds that the grouping provided misleading information.
The development forced the grouping to launch an appeal against the registrar’s decision and the case was scheduled for today.
During the case, the respondents argued that it was right for the registrar to take into account what was in the public domain ie the name United Transformation Movement was already in the public domain so any reasonable registrar would have arrived at the decision he did.
However, Goba, Counsel for the appellant (UTM) quashed the claim saying any reasonable or well trained lawyer should not have made that assertion.
Instead, he said the legal question in the legal matters should be : what are the constituting documents and what do they say about the name of the party, and not what’s in the public domain.
After all, there have been a lot of things in the public domain such as Chilima Movement, United Transformation Movement, and Transformation Movement.
The case has since been adjourned to later date.
