Nyasaland was banned in 1958 was re-formed as the Malawi Congress Party in 1959. After the emergency, a commission headed by Lord Devlin exposed the failings of the Nyasaland administration. The Commission found that the declaration of a State of Emergency was necessary to restore order and prevent a descent into anarchy, but it criticised instances of the illegal use of force by the police and troops, including burning houses, destroying property and beatings. It rejected the existence of any "murder plot", but noted: The report concluded that the Nyasaland administration had lost the support of Nyasaland's African people, noting their
Nyasaland Emergency, while at the same time conceding that the declaration of a State of Emergency was "justified in any event". The Commission also declared that Banda had no knowledge of the inflammatory talk of some Congress activists about attacking Europeans. On 3 March 1959 Sir Robert Armitage, as governor of Nyasaland, declared a State of Emergency over the whole of the protectorate and, in a police and military undertaking which it called Operation Sunrise arrested Dr. Hastings Banda its president and other members of its executive committee, as well as over a hundred local party officials. The Nyasaland African Congress