Societal Engagement, Democratic Transition, and Constitutional Implementation in Malawi

The essay focuses on Malawi, which experienced a remarkable constitution-making process between 1992 and 1995. When drafting its constitution, Malawi blazed innovative trails to democracy, thus experiencing heterogeneous processes of constitutional transition. Leaders and political movements promoted democratic transition and therefore resorted to constituent assemblies, constitutional commissions. Furthermore, Malawi sought the its people's views, and therefore adopted innovative constitution-making mechanisms. To this extent, constituent assemblies were complemented by mechanisms of both direct democracy and citizens' participation, such as commissions of inquiry or constitutional commissions that toured the countries in question to hold public meetings. Thus, the essay deals with the participatory spirit which still percolates through the Malawian constitutional environment.