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Summary The lawmakers in Malawian are set to debate a change in the law that is going to criminalize public farting. Amendments are being brought in to make the public farting a minor crime.
The government has a right to ensure public decency. We are entitled to introduce order in the country, justice and constitutional affairs minister George Chaponda said while talking to the media regarding a law that will ban public farting.Chaponda, a key figure in President Bingu wa Mutharikas government, said that if Malawians cannot control their farting they should go to the toilet instead of farting in public.He added that “Nature can be controlled... it becomes a nuisance if people fart anywhere. Would you like to see people farting in public anywhere?” A lawyer himself, Chaponda said that under the amended law farting will be considered a minor offence.The amendment, which will make farting in public an offence, is not yet public but it will be presented to parliament for debate as part of a review by the state-sponsored Law Commission of the countrys penal code. Nobody in Malawi has been arrested nor convicted for farting under the old law, as police did not enforce it. Chapondas Democratic Progressive Party will bank on its majority to pass the amendment to a law which was first introduced in 1929.The old law states: Any person who voluntarily vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighborhood or passing along a public way, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. The southern African state is a conservative society with punishable previous bans on long hair for men and trouser-wearing for women.
