Latest Articles

All years
Swazi court makes news – by giving reasons for recusal

FOR some time, courts in Swaziland have been raising puzzled eyebrows over controversial recusal decisions made without explanation to the litigants involved. In one such case the en masse decision of a court’s members to recuse themselves has left litigants with nowhere to go, raising concerns that the right to access a legal forum to hear and decide a matter has been infringed. But now that country’s courts have made news of a more positive kind. A judge in Swaziland has done what is normal practice in other jurisdictions: he has actually given written reasons for his decision on recusal. Judge Mzwandile Fakudze’s formal recusal judgment involves a case disputing the election of an MP.

Lesotho: New judgment reinstates Mosito

A DECISIVE new judgment by five acting judges of Lesotho’s highest court has found that the former president of the appeal court, Kananelo Mosito, who resigned to pre-empt his impeachment, has been validly reappointed by government. The new decision that will see the acting chief justice swearing in Mosito very soon does not, however, resolve Lesotho’s continuing judicial problems and in particular the alarming issue of ongoing political interference with the judiciary.

Too many heirs to this traditional Zambian throne

ZAMBIA’S courts have been wrestling with how to resolve a dispute over a “novel situation”: too many contenders to the throne of Chief Kapijimanga, leader of the country’s Kaonde people. The high court proposed an unusual remedy for this dilemma, namely that all subjects should be involved in considering the way forward. But this apparently democratizing approach was overturned on appeal with the supreme court finding that the electoral college of royal family members traditionally made such decisions – not their “subjects”.

SA’s Constitutional Court slates ex-President Jacob Zuma over protocol replacing SADC Tribunal with a toothless body
SA’s Constitutional Court slates ex-President Jacob Zuma over protocol replacing SADC Tribunal with a toothless body

SA’s ex-president, Jacob Zuma, already in hot water with pending corruption charges and a court order that he must personally pay some of his massive legal costs, has again become the target of serious criticism from SA’s Constitutional Court. This time the country’s highest court was considering an application to set aside Zuma’s decision backing the dissolution of the SADC Tribunal, a crucial regional rights forum, based in Windhoek, Namibia. The application also asked that his agreement to a “protocol” establishing an effectively toothless body, barred from considering petitions from individuals, be declared invalid. The court said Zuma had the duty to uphold rights, not abandon them, as he had done in this case, and ordered that his presidential ratification of the “protocol” be withdrawn.

A new chapter for human rights in Zimbabwe?

A KEY section of one of Zimbabwe’s most used – and most despised – anti-human rights laws, the Public Order and Security Act (Posa), has been declared unconstitutional by eight senior judges sitting as that country’s constitutional court. Among others, the section allowed for repeated month-long bans on all public demonstrations in any areas. The judgment found the section effectively gave the authorities power to nullify two important fundamental rights – to demonstrate and to petition – “completely and perpetually”. The outcome has been widely welcomed, among others by Amnesty International.

Zimbabwe victims of SA’s banking woes in novel relief bid
Zimbabwe victims of SA’s banking woes in novel relief bid

SA’s corruption woes are casting long shadows across the whole region. Highly improper decisions to “invest” in two discredited SA financial outfits, VBS Mutual Bank and Mamepe Capital, have led to the demise of a Namibian bank intended to provide banking facilities for Namibia’s small businesses and disadvantaged communities. The insolvency of the bank has in turn hit its two minorities shareholders, both from Zimbabwe. Lawyers for the Zimbabwe shareholders have tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Namibia’s highest court not to wind up the bank. They took a novel line, saying the Namibian constitution required the courts to adopt a different view on what should have happened when the bank was identified as insolvent. The judges should have been tougher on procedural shortcomings in the light of the constitutional aims of empowering disadvantaged communities, and should not have approved the winding-up application. First the high court and now the supreme court as well, have rejected this argument, saying Namibia was based on the rule of law, and the central bank was bound by law to act as it did to protect the country’s financial stability and the hard-earned savings of people and enterprises.

First woman chief justice sworn in for Ethiopia

For the first time in the country's history, Ethiopia has a woman chief justice. Meaza Ashenafi was sworn in as the head of the Federal Supreme Court today, 1 November 2018. She had been nominated by Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed. Ashenafi, the founder of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association, is widely regarded for her work as a human rights activist.

Challenges to Judicial independence in Seychelles

WITH mounting international concern about the open conflict on the Seychelles judicial bench, a delegation of the Southern African Chief Justices’ Forum has visited the country and offered its help in resolving the situation. It has also volunteered its professional expertise with the legal reforms that are clearly needed in the Seychelles.

Land commission reversed after “monumental, unmitigated” breach of natural justice

LAND issues are causing storms in many African countries as politicians, courts and ordinary people struggle to work out a just solution to problems of land ownership. While in Uganda the issue of how the judiciary handles land issues is currently causing a spat between judges themselves, in Kenya a new decision has seen the National Land Commission thoroughly trounced by the high court because of the way it has handled a matter.

Top judges jolt magistrates, prosecutors over slack handling of drugs cases

TWO high court judges in Namibia have strongly criticized magistrates and prosecutors in that country’s lower courts for not taking drug abuse offences seriously enough. The two judges, one of them Judge President Petrus Damaseb, were reviewing the conviction and sentence of a drug dealer who had been selling cannabis to children at a primary school. After the prosecution put to him the count of possession only – and not the second count of dealing – the prosecutor proposed that he be dealt with under a section that limits sentence to a fine. The judges said the purpose of their strongly-worded judgment in the case was to emphasise to prosecutors and magistrates “the need to reflect on the approach currently adopted in the lower courts which, unfortunately, often operates against the interests of justice.” The judges, who said they confirmed conviction and sentence only reluctantly, urged that a clear message should now emerge from the court that crimes of this nature would no longer be tolerated and that sentences would from now on be “appropriately severe”.