Malawi In September, a 60-year-old man, Alinafe Paulo of the Traditional Authority Nsamala in Balaka in southern Malawi was convicted and fined MK3,000 (about $5) or serve three months imprisonment with hard labor for insulting the President. This was also a trend during the period 2012 and 2014 when over 10 cases were reported of people being arrested for insulting the then President Joyce Banda. Apart from Section 181 of the Penal Code, other laws in the statute books include the Official Secrets Act (1913), the Printed Publications Act (1947) and the Censorship and Control of Entertainments Act (1968) as well as the Protected Flags, Emblems and Names Act. As stated in our past narratives of the same publication, the Protected Flags, Emblems and Names Act still quotes a fine in Pound Sterling and not Malawi kwacha, supporting the call for law reform, 51 years after independence. The DPP promised to amend and/or repeal laws that limit freedom of expression, including signing the Declaration of Table Mountain, as a sign of commitment to repealing repressive and insult laws, but nothing has happened two years down the line. The existence of these laws remains a cause for concern because they continue to silence both journalists and civil society actors. Access to Information Malawi was considered progressive when Cabinet approved a policy on access to information, during a Cabinet meeting on January 27, 2014. Since the campaign on ATI started in 2004, the only administration to include ATI as its campaign promise was the DPP by including it in their manifesto. Section 180 of the DPP manifesto read: ‘We recognize that access to information is a major challenge… In this regard, the DPP government will pass and implement the Access to Information bill.’ Existing anti-free speech laws were systematically employed to suppress free speech. Twenty one months later, to the surprise and disappointment of many Malawians, activitists, stakeholders and human rights advocates, the Mutharika administration reneged on its promise to enact the Bill and rejected the proposed legislation during a Cabinet meeting held on Tuesday, November 17, 2015 in the capital Lilongwe. The Bill was referred back to the Cabinet Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for further review. The Cabinet rejected the Bill on the grounds that it was filled with inconsistencies. Cabinet felt the law could not be applied retrospectively; there were concerns with whistle blower protection and surprisingly it did not want the Official Secrets Act of 1913 to be invalidated by the new law. Cabinet apparently also wanted the Ministry of Information to be the implementation agency and not the Malawi Human Rights Commission or indeed an Independent Information Commission as proposed by different stakeholders who assisted with the drafting the Bill. The Draft ATI Bill was developed based So This is Democracy? 2015 37