Day's Diary

July 15, 2007 ~ The Road Block

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One of the routines of life in Malawi is the road block. The Malawian Police randomly set up blocks to check for safety compliances on vehicles. Most often, it is the mini buses that are stopped for expired stickers, bad tires or faulty parts. There are three circular disks that must be displayed on the passenger side windshield, one for registration, one for insurance and one for safety inspection or COF (Certification of Fitness). I have never worried about them because I knew when my stickers were due to expire and made certain that I had them renewed because I had heard of the struggles that come from violations. In the past, if stopped, you paid the fine to the police officer who stopped you, took the citation and then went to have the violation fixed, but because of corruption (police pocketing the fines or taking bribes to not write up the violations), this practice was stopped and violators must go to the police station and then to the court to pay the fines.

This past week, Dr. Sue Makin and I headed up north, first to Lilongwe, where she wanted to have her car serviced because of a noise in the back while she attended to patients at the central hospital in Lilongwe, and then on to Embangweni Hospital in Livingstonia Synod for consultations. She invited me along since I have never been to the north and this would give me the opportunity to see the country and to visit with some of the other mission workers in Malawi. I am on holiday, so this was the prefect time for such a road trip. We headed off around 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, expecting to arrive in Lilongwe about 1:00 p.m. for her car appointment. Then we would back track a bit to Nkhoma Synod mission station to spend time with Dr. Barbara Nagy and her family before going on to Livingstonia.

When we got about 10 minutes past Balak, which is approximately an hour and a half from Zomba, there was a road block. The officer looked at the stickers, then looked again and then slowly walked around the car, finally coming to the driver’s window. He asked Sue if she knew that her COF had expired. She said no, that she did not. He asked her to get her license and step out of the car, which she did. He then pointed out to her the left rear tire, which was worn. He informed her that these were two serious violations and that we had to drive with him back to the police station in Balaka where this would be handled. He got into the back seat, Sue turned around and back we went in silence. He indicated where Sue was to park the car, at the back of the police station. I elected to wait in the car, since neither of us knew exactly what the procedure was and all our luggage was in the car. It was 9:45 a.m. at this point.

Sue went into a small office labeled “Traffic” and I pulled out a book to read. About 10:30 a.m., Sue emerged from the office to get the expired disk from the windshield and returned to the office. She said she knew she was guilty and thought she could pay the fine and we would be on our way.  Fifteen minutes later she and the officer exited the office and informed me that he was escorting her to the magistrate’s court just down the road to pay the fine. I settled in to read some more. By noon I expected to see her return, but there was no sign of her. About 12:30 p.m. she came back with the news that she was to appear in court at 1:30. She suggested a “picnic” with the fruit and hard boiled eggs we had packed. She said this was just going to be a much longer process then she had imagined. On the way back from the magistrate’s court, she had met some nursing students from Mulanje who were working at the local hospital and we took our picnic to them. We thought we might as well make the most of the time. After lunch, we walked to the courtroom to wait for the judge. The courtroom was a partially open air room with partial walls on two sides, full walls front and back, and an elevated bench in front, with two railed platforms, one on either side, in which the defendants stood. In front of the bench were two tables where the clerk and the prosecutors sat. There were rows of benches for onlookers to sit. This was feeling much more formal and foreboding than just paying a traffic violation. There was a case in process when we arrived at 1:15 p.m.. The proceedings were in Chichewa, but this was obviously a dispute of some kind about a maize mill. When the questioning of the accused was finished, the court sat in silence while the judge wrote and then finally read his verdict. Court was adjourned at 1:30 p.m.. Sue said she had been told a different magistrate would come to handle the traffic violation. She thought he would be there at any time. She called the garage in Lilongwe that was to service her car to try and work out timing. They said if she had it in by 5:00 p.m., they would take her first in the morning. She calculated that if we were finished and on the road by 2:00 p.m., that would work. But no magistrate came. We waited outside the courtroom with the police officer and officers of the court. At 2:30, the magistrate arrived, the same one who had conducted the earlier trail we had witnessed. He had just gone for lunch!

At 2:45 p. m., all those waiting were summoned into the courtroom. The judge entered and everyone stood. This was official. Sue was ordered to stand in the witness box on the right side of the courtroom. The judge was handed a stack of papers, all hand written, that contained the arresting officer’s report and the charge. The judge asked her to state her full name, which she did. He read the report and charges aloud as Sue stood in the witness box. He asked her if she agreed with the report, which she said she did. He then read the charges again and asked her if she understood that she had two violations of unlawfully driving a motor vehicle on a public road with an expired fitness sticker and driving an unsafe vehicle on a public road. This was beginning to sound like criminal actions, not a mere traffic citation. She said yes. He then told her to be seated in the witness box and the police officer was asked to recount the event of the violations. He read the report he had written, the one the judge had just read, and then Sue was told to stand and was asked if this report were correct. She said yes. He then asked her what her plea was. She said she was guilty of both charges. He asked, “Then you are pleading guilty?” She said yes. He asked her if there were any mitigating circumstances that the court should consider. She said, rather weakly, that she had forgotten to check the expiration date of the COF, didn’t know that it was expired and that she was on her way to the garage to have her car serviced and address the problem that was causing the wearing of the tire. He told her to be seated. He then began to write. Now with the last case we had witnessed, it took him about 10 minutes to write his verdict. This case seemed rather straight forward, but it took him 25 minutes to write this verdict. During this time, the courtroom, with about 50 people waiting their turns at justice, sat in silence. The longer it took for him to finish, the heavier the silence seemed.

Finally he said, “Let the defendant rise.” This was a formal sentencing. Sue looked small and defenseless in that witness box. Again the judge read the charges and then recited the maximum sentence for these offenses – 20,000 kwacha each and/or one year of imprisonment. This had a very ominous sound to it. He went on to say that this was for the worst offender and he didn’t believe that the worst offender had been born yet, so there should be some leniency. He took this time to stress the seriousness and danger of driving with reckless concern for the law and endangering the lives of those around by driving an unsafe vehicle. Since this was her first offense, however, he was sentencing her to 5,550 kwacha fine for each offense. She was given 15 days to correct the violations or she would be imprisoned for three months. He declared the case adjourned. She was instructed to pay the court immediately. We were escorted to a room behind the courtroom, where an officer was given all the paper work and proceeded to make out the report that Sue would use when next stopped at a road block, until such time as she had the violations corrected. She paid the fine and we were free to go. The court proceedings had taken an hour and the entire process had taken six hours. Dr. Sue Makin is now a convicted traffic violator. She will never again take road blocks for granted, nor will I.

We laughed for much of the rest of the trip about her status as a convicted felon. She has regaled friends with the details of her conviction. This was for two traffic violations…I can’t imagine the drama of a murder trial here in Malawi if this is what happens with routine traffic stops!