Ekandjo in hot water with High Court

THE threat of being convicted of contempt of court – coupled with the possibility of imprisonment – is once again looming over Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo.

On Friday the High Court gave the Minister another five days to comply with a court judgement dating back to 1994, and further ordered that if he does not obey that 10-year-old order, he would have to show to the court on October 29 why he should not be convicted of contempt of court and be sentenced to a period of imprisonment. Ray Goba, the lawyer from the Office of the Attorney-General’s Directorate: Civil Litigation (Government Attorney) who had been representing the Minister in the case in which judgement was given on Friday, was not yet in a position to indicate yesterday whether the Minister would lodge an appeal to the Supreme Court against the judgement.Goba still had to discuss the matter with his client when he was contacted.Ekandjo already has a conviction for contempt of court on his record.That dates back to February 2001, when he played a key role in a politically highly-charged court saga over Government’s attempts to expel a former representative of Angola’s Unita movement, Jose Domingos Sikunda, from Namibia.Ekandjo was found guilty of contempt of court after he had refused for over three months to comply with a High Court order for the release of Sikunda from custody.The latest case in which Ekandjo is again at risk of being held in contempt of court has no such political intrigues attached to it, though.Instead, Friday’s court decision against the Minister is the latest round in a convoluted court safari that a Mariental resident, Johan van der Berg, has been on over the past 10 years.In the process, the accumulation of interest on a damages claim of a little over N$130 000 that Van der Berg had lodged against the Minister of Home Affairs, and on which the High Court gave default judgement against the Minister in August 1994, has caused the claim to balloon to over N$1 million by now.It is that amount, plus Van der Berg’s legal costs, that the Minister – in his capacity as Minister responsible for the Namibian Police – was once again ordered to pay on Friday.About a third of the interest has been building up in the last three years, while the judgement that was handed down on Friday was being awaited.Van der Berg’s claim had its origin in damage that was done to a bakkie of his while it was in the custody of the Police.The vehicle had been confiscated after Van der Berg had used it as part payment in an alleged illegal diamond deal in which he was trapped in the early 1990s.He was initially acquitted on that charge in the Mariental Magistrate’s Court, but that verdict was overturned on appeal in the High Court.Thereafter the Magistrate’s Court found him guilty, but the High Court again intervened on appeal and in June 1996 convicted him of having attempted to deal in rough or uncut diamonds.By then, Van der Berg had already obtained a default judgement against the Minister of Home Affairs for the damage of his bakkie while in the care of the Police, after the Minister’s legal representatives had initially failed to defend the case.Since then, the case had at times remained dormant, while moves between Van der Berg and Government’s lawyers were afoot to negotiate the issue, until Van der Berg again took legal steps in mid-2000 to have the judgement against the Minister enforced.Goba argued during the hearing of the case before Judge Elton Hoff that the Minister had believed, following legal advice, that the default judgement that had been granted in Van der Berg’s favour had been a mistake – amongst other factors because he had been advised that the law states that the vehicle had been automatically forfeited to the State because it had been used as payment in an illegal diamond deal.Judge Hoff was not persuaded by this argument, though.He noted that after this advice had been given in mid-1996, the Minister did nothing to have the default judgement rescinded, but instead left it to hibernate for at least four years.There was no plausible explanation for that failure on the Minister’s part, the Judge remarked.He added that in his view the Minister’s conduct had been “most unreasonable”, and that he had been “grossly negligent” in not taking steps to have the default judgement from 1994 rescinded.The Minister was in willful default of the court’s order, Judge Hoff found, as he reminded him of a warning that the High Court had issued some three and a half years ago.It reads: “Judgements, orders, are what the courts are all about.The effectiveness of a court lies in the execution of its judgements and orders.You frustrate or disobey a court order, you strike at one of the foundations which established and founded the state of Namibia.The collapse of the rule of law in any country is the birth of anarchy.”That statement was made in a judgement in the Sikunda case.That judgement concluded with the court convicting the second respondent in that case of contempt of court.That respondent was the Minister of Home Affairs, Jerry Ekandjo.Ray Goba, the lawyer from the Office of the Attorney-General’s Directorate: Civil Litigation (Government Attorney) who had been representing the Minister in the case in which judgement was given on Friday, was not yet in a position to indicate yesterday whether the Minister would lodge an appeal to the Supreme Court against the judgement.Goba still had to discuss the matter with his client when he was contacted.Ekandjo already has a conviction for contempt of court on his record.That dates back to February 2001, when he played a key role in a politically highly-charged court saga over Government’s attempts to expel a former representative of Angola’s Unita movement, Jose Domingos Sikunda, from Namibia.Ekandjo was found guilty of contempt of court after he had refused for over three months to comply with a High Court order for the release of Sikunda from custody.The latest case in which Ekandjo is again at risk of being held in contempt of court has no such political intrigues attached to it, though.Instead, Friday’s court decision against the Minister is the latest round in a convoluted court safari that a Mariental resident, Johan van der Berg, has been on over the past 10 years.In the process, the accumulation of interest on a damages claim of a little over N$130 000 that Van der Berg had lodged against the Minister of Home Affairs, and on which the High Court gave default judgement against the Minister in August 1994, has caused the claim to balloon to over N$1 million by now.It is that amount, plus Van der Berg’s legal costs, that the Minister – in his capacity as Minister responsible for the Namibian Police – was once again ordered to pay on Friday.About a third of the interest has been building up in the last three years, while the judgement that was handed down on Friday was being awaited.Van der Berg’s claim had its origin in damage that was done to a bakkie of his while it was in the custody of the Police.The vehicle had been confiscated after Van der Berg had used it as part payment in an alleged illegal diamond deal in which he was trapped in the early 1990s.He was initially acquitted on that charge in the Mariental Magistrate’s Court, but that verdict was overturned on appeal in the High Court.Thereafter the Magistrate’s Court found him guilty, but the High Court again intervened on appeal and in June 1996 convicted him of having attempted to deal in rough or uncut diamonds.By then, Van der Berg had already obtained a default judgement against the Minister of Home Affairs for the damage of his bakkie while in the care of the Police, after the Minister’s legal representatives had initially failed to defend the case.Since then, the case had at times remained dormant, while moves between Van der Berg and Government’s lawyers were afoot to negotiate the issue, until Van der Berg again took legal steps in mid-2000 to have the judgement against the Minister enforced.Goba argued during the hearing of the case before Judge Elton Hoff that the Minister had believed, following legal advic
e, that the default judgement that had been granted in Van der Berg’s favour had been a mistake – amongst other factors because he had been advised that the law states that the vehicle had been automatically forfeited to the State because it had been used as payment in an illegal diamond deal.Judge Hoff was not persuaded by this argument, though.He noted that after this advice had been given in mid-1996, the Minister did nothing to have the default judgement rescinded, but instead left it to hibernate for at least four years.There was no plausible explanation for that failure on the Minister’s part, the Judge remarked.He added that in his view the Minister’s conduct had been “most unreasonable”, and that he had been “grossly negligent” in not taking steps to have the default judgement from 1994 rescinded.The Minister was in willful default of the court’s order, Judge Hoff found, as he reminded him of a warning that the High Court had issued some three and a half years ago.It reads: “Judgements, orders, are what the courts are all about.The effectiveness of a court lies in the execution of its judgements and orders.You frustrate or disobey a court order, you strike at one of the foundations which established and founded the state of Namibia.The collapse of the rule of law in any country is the birth of anarchy.”That statement was made in a judgement in the Sikunda case.That judgement concluded with the court convicting the second respondent in that case of contempt of court.That respondent was the Minister of Home Affairs, Jerry Ekandjo.