Amushelelo asks for N$300 fine only after calling judges ‘little gods’

Social activist Michael Amushelelo will be sentenced for contempt of court in the Windhoek High Court on Wednesday.

Acting judge Doris Hans-Kaumbi postponed Amushelelo’s sentencing to 12h30 on Wednesday after Amushelelo and lawyer Nambili Mhata addressed her in the morning.

Amushelelo suggested that the court should not sentence him to imprisonment and should instead impose a fine of N$300.

Mhata noted that the aim of a sentence for contempt of court should be “to wake the offender up” to the fact that with their conduct they are impairing the dignity of a pillar of the rule of law.

“The aim is not necessarily to punish the offender, but to bring the offender back to his senses,” Mhata said.

Hans-Kaumbi held Amushelelo in contempt of court and ordered that he be taken into custody on Monday evening, after he had referred to judges as “puppets” and said they regard themselves as “little gods”.

Amushelelo made the remarks during proceedings in an urgent application in which police inspector general Joseph Shikongo is asking the High Court to order Amushelelo to remove comments he had made on social media about a fatal road collision in which Shikongo was involved in December 2022.

Amushelelo is also asking the court to declare that Amushelelo was in contempt of court and that he breached a court order issued in October last year when he made his remarks on social media.

Shikongo’s urgent application is scheduled to be heard by another judge on Thursday.

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