Serving Magistrates who want to apply for the advertised posts will now be allowed to do so - but they would have to resign from their current permanent appointments if they are successful with their applications to fill the temporary posts that have been advertised, the Chairman of the Magistrates' Commission, Judge Annel Silungwe, told The Namibian on Tuesday.

A group of serving Magistrates threatened to go as far as mounting industrial action - that is, striking - if they were not allowed to apply for the new posts after it emerged in advertisements for the positions that neither serving Magistrates nor Public Prosecutors would be allowed to apply.

The Magistrates' Commission invited applications for five temporary posts on the level of a Chief Legal Officer, as well as 13 temporary posts on the level of a Principal Legal Officer, early in October.

The posts that were advertised are all for temporary appointments for two years.

Their relatively senior level - higher than both the Senior Legal Officer and entry-level Legal Officer level at the bottom end of Magistrates' ranks - prompted an outcry of dissatisfaction from some 35 of the country's 54 Magistrates, who complained that they were being denied a long-awaited opportunity to advance in their profession.

Judge Silungwe said on Tuesday that the creation of the temporary positions was aimed at clearing the backlog of pending cases in Namibia's lower courts, which are shackled with a shortage of Magistrates.

He added that it would defeat the very purpose of that exercise if Magistrates already serving in the country's lower courts were to apply to fill the new posts, which would only create new vacancies in their old posts.

The new posts were pegged at a senior level to make them sufficiently attractive that experienced lawyers would be applying, the Judge said.

He said the Magistrates' Commission had secured money under difficult conditions to finance the new posts, and that it plans to interview candidates and make appointments early in 2006, hopefully during January.

The Chief of Lower Courts, Petrus Unengu, who is also a member of the Magistrates' Commission, has been delegated to send Magistrates a circular to iron out the details of the Commission's reconsideration of its previous decision to bar serving Magistrates from applying, Judge Silungwe also indicated.

Unengu is on leave, and is due to return to his office only by the second week of January.

By yesterday, Magistrates had not yet received any written notice from him informing them of the Commission's latest stance on their eligibility to apply for the new appointments, a source among the Magistrates said.

The Deputy Chairperson of the Commission, lawyer Shafimana Ueitele, said yesterday that the Commission had taken a policy decision to open the new posts for applications from serving Magistrates.

The deadline for those posts, which had initially been set at November 4, would be extended, and interested Magistrates would be given either seven or 14 days to apply for the posts after they had been notified of the Commission's decision, Ueitele said.

In the meantime, though, the Commission has also decided to fill Magistrates' posts that have been vacant for longer than a year - such as at Karasburg, Luederitz, Opuwo and Khorixas - while appointments in other posts would follow after interested Magistrates had been given a chance to apply, Ueitele said.

On the part of the Magistrates, a spokesperson made it clear that they would not accept the Commission going back on what they considered to be an undertaking to lift the bar on their applications for the new posts.

If that was not done as promised, the spokesperson said, the Magistrates are prepared to take legal action against the Commission.

"Then we go to court," it was declared.

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