Carmel Rickard

Worrying failure of Kenyan government to heed court orders

• 20 September 2018
• Carmel Rickard

EXPLOSIVE tension between two rival political leaders in Kenya may have been eased by last week’s unexpected meeting between them but there’s another, growing, tension of major concern: that between government and the judiciary in Kenya.

Judge removed for corruption loses reinstatement appeal

• 20 September 2018
• Carmel Rickard

ONE of the most painful periods in Kenya’s judicial history has been re-opened, with an appeal by former judge Tom Mbaluto against his 2008 dismissal from the bench for corruption. As Carmel Rickard explains, the former judge was dismissed after a tribunal sat to hear allegations against him and recommended his removal from office. Dissatisfied with the outcome, however, he has brought two court challenges contesting his removal, the second of which has now been finalized by Kenya’s court of appeal.

Bring back the SADC Tribunal, says judge

• 20 September 2018
• Carmel Rickard

ONE of the strong calls to emerge from this year’s SADC-Lawyers Association conference in Maputo, Mozambique, was for the “old” SADC Tribunal to be reinstated. The tribunal was scrapped at the instigation of Zimbabwe’s former president, Robert Mugabe, and SADC leaders then negotiated another tribunal that would deal only with disputes between member states, and not between individuals and states as in the past. Among those who expressed support for the “old” tribunal to return was SA judge, Thoba Poyo Dlwati, a former president of SADC-LA, who spoke about the human rights infrastructure of the region.

Court rejects international arrest warrants in African trafficking case

• 20 September 2018
• Carmel Rickard

VULNERABLE girls and young women trafficked from Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Ghana will have to wait even longer before they know whether they will ever get justice. The couple accused of trafficking them, referred to only as M and B, because they have children who may not be identified, are the subject of extradition attempts. An Italian court in Naples has asked the UK courts to respond to two European arrest warrants (EAWs) and extradite M and B, now in the UK. That extradition was approved in 2016 but the UK judge dealing with an appeal in the matter said there were serious problems about the information provided as part of the arrest warrants: “a wholesale failure to provide the necessary particulars”

Judge faces impeachment over drunken misconduct - 11 years later

• 20 July 2018
• Carmel Rickard

‘War against women’ with rise in gender-based torture

• 11 May 2018
• Carmel Rickard

A judge in Zimbabwe has slammed fatal domestic violence against women as 'gender-based torture'. Sentencing a man who savagely murdered his partner the judge, Amy Tsanga, said women were 'clobbered, booted, strangled, stabbed or slashed to death' by their partners. Such attacks so often happened in their own bedrooms that these spaces had become 'a deadly environment' for women. In her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site, Carmel Rickard writes about this and other similar cases finalised in the courts of the southern African region in the first half of April alone, and says there seems to be a 'war against women'.

Uganda: Judicial Independence Reaffirmed

• 20 April 2018
• Carmel Rickard

JUDGES of Uganda’s constitutional court have come to the rescue of two judicial colleagues: the two judges of that country’s industrial court were appointed for a five-year term, while the constitution says judges must have permanent, pensionable appointments. The two judges petitioned the court for help after they had no satisfaction when they raised the matter with the attorney-general. The court agreed that it was unconstitutional to appoint judges for a short-term period and that this could impact on judicial independence. But while the constitutional court decision is an important reaffirmation of basic principles entrenching the independence of the judiciary, Carmel Rickard suggests that the costs order – each party to bear its own costs even though the two judges were successful – could act as a deterrent in the future to private parties wanting to challenge unconstitutional acts or legislation.

FOREIGN JUDGES ON LESOTHO BENCH SLAM POLITICAL INTERFERENCE IN JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS

• 20 April 2018
• Carmel Rickard

AN EXTRAORDINARY new high court judgment from Lesotho highlights a serious problem in that country’s judicial and executive arms: every one of the last four permanent appointments to head Lesotho’s highest court has ended in scandal, with political interference playing a major role.

Kenyan court of appeal ruling

• 19 March 2018
• Carmel Rickard

THE legal battle over the ongoing failures of Kenya’s government to obey court orders has taken a fresh turn. In a new and significant ruling, the court of appeal has refused an official petition: high ranking Kenyan officials asked the appeal court to stay high court directions that activist lawyer Miguna Miguna be allowed to return home. As Carmel Rickard explains, this follows last month’s high court orders that Miguna, deported to Canada in flagrant defiance of judges’ instructions, must be brought back at government expense and on a date of his choosing.

Namibian Supreme Court outlaws ultra-long prison sentences

• 13 February 2018
• Carmel Rickard

In an important new decision, Namibia’s highest court has held that judges in that country may not impose jail terms that are “longer than a life sentence”. Prisoners serving life may be considered for possible parole after 25 years, and the supreme court has now held that any sentence in which parole is not at least notionally possible after 25 years, would be unconstitutional. The court was dealing with an appeal in which a trial court had imposed sentences of well over 60 years. Some judges imposed ultra-long sentences as a way of ensuring that a prisoner never became eligible for parole, said the court, but it was unacceptable to impose any sentence that was “in effect far more severe than (a) life sentence”.