Building Resistance from Within: Judicial Culture in Malawi

In sub-Saharan Africa, few judiciaries have been able to constrain the executive branch. Despite the introduction of multiparty politics in the 1990s and promises of democratization, incumbents have remained disproportionately powerful, often capturing formal institutions like the judiciary. However, the Malawian judiciary stands as an exception to this broader trend. Unlike other judiciaries, such as Kenya's, which have only recently started to resist executive pressure, Malawian courts have demonstrated resilience since the 1990s. This resistance has only strengthened over time, culminating in the 2020 annulment of the presidential election. What explains the Malawian courts' ability to resist executive threats and interference? By examining electoral judgments, this paper argues that the courts' capacity to protect the electoral process is linked to the emergence of a strong judicial culture. Judicial culture, however, does not exist in a vacuum. Drawing on original data from over 100 electoral judgments and 25 semi-structured interviews with judges, this paper shows that the Malawian culture of judicial resistance is the result of repeated interactions with judicial support networks, which were facilitated by the institutional reforms of 1994.