Zione Ntaba

Ntabe was born in 1978. She studied law at the University of Malawi and in 2007 she obtained a masters degree in Advanced Legislative Drafting from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London,^[1]

In 2009 she was in America taking a course organised by Justice Advocacy Africa at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.^[2]

She became a High Court Judge on 19 June 2013.^[1]

In 2019 she was one of nine women who were judges in Malawi, the others were Jane Ansah who later became Vice President of Malawi, Dorothy Kamanga, Ivy Kamanga, Rachel Sophie Sikwese, Annabel Mtalimanja, Fiona Mwale and Ruth Chinangwa.^[3] Ntaba had to recuse herself from a case she was judging in 2019 concerning the murder of an albino man, MacDonald Masambuka.^[4] Testimony given by one of the accused was that the murder was the idea of Peter Mutharika and Hetherwick Ntaba. Mutharika was a previous President of Malawi at the time and Hetherwick Ntaba was her father's brother.^[5] (The case was later judged by Dorothy Kamanga).^[6]

Ntaba is involved with Justice Advocacy Africa since it began in 2009 and its pro bono work to further justice in Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, and Botswana. She is the Program Director for Malawi and she is a member of their board.^[2]

In 2022 the Lands Minister Kezzie Msukwa was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau while he was receiving treatment at a hospital. He applied for a judicial review and Ntaba set aside the arrest, but she did not grant the review. Her decision created some debate and the Malawi Law Society issued a statement which was interpreted at a rebuke of her action. They argued that if there was no review then an arrest could not be set aside.^[7]

In a 2025 speech, she said that there is relatively little enforcement of anti-human trafficking law in the country.^[8]

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