Now she asserted her constitutional right to take over the running of the country, and got the military top brass – themselves concerned with the direction Malawi was taking – to support her. Banda's inauguration as president in April 2012 was a turning point for Malawi.
Actually governing Malawi in her own right has been much harder, made much more so by the infamous Cashgate scandal which has dogged her administration since it broke in October last year.
The case comes four months before elections in Malawi.
The applications I drafted were not heard by a judge for many months, as all 200 courts across Malawi were closed due to a strike by court staff over pay shortly after I arrived.
Malawi ranks among the top 10 recipients of UK aid and, while the economy has grown in recent years, more than 50% of the population still live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
A statement by the Malawi government, which is investigating the fish kill, says the mine had never released effluent into the environment from its storage facilities.
Unless milled, the import of GM foods is banned in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
It is unrealistic to suggest that every individual arrested in Malawi must be given access to a lawyer.
Malawi, like many African countries, has suffered from poor health service delivery for decades.
My colleague, Steve from Malawi, goes there most evenings to eat roasted mhogo (cassava).
Related: Permaculture in Malawi: using food forests to prevent floods and hunger In Mozambique, I met an agriculture expert from an aid agency who said it took him years to understand that boosting yields on farms is only half the battle, and that unless one goes a step further to connect farmers to market opportunities, development assistance is often a dead end.
