Faster Supreme Court leads by example

BY simply getting on with the job and doing what it is supposed to do Namibia’s Supreme Court has started to lead by example over the past year.

Like other courts in Namibia, the Supreme Court has in recent years appeared to struggle to cope with its increasing workload, and has in many cases taken unacceptably long to deliver its judgements.If court statistics are an indication of things to come, the Supreme Court may have turned a corner in 2012, though.Despite having an increasing number of appeals to hear and adjudicate, the Supreme Court also managed to deliver substantially more judgements over the past year than in previous years.Court statistics indicate that the court delivered a total of 13 judgements during 2011. During 2012, that number was doubled, to 26 appeal judgements delivered.The court had 27 appeal matters on its roll over the past year. By the end of the year, its judgements in most of the appeals heard during the first two of its three sessions this year have been delivered.The court’s pace of delivering its decisions has also shown a marked increase on earlier years, with this year’s 26 appeal judgements an improvement on the 18 judgements delivered in 2010, and 17 in 2009.By picking up the pace, the Supreme Court has not only continued to make major contributions to the developing jurisprudence of Namibia – for instance delivering significant decisions on the conduct of elections in Namibia, the battle against corruption, extradition, and the independence of the country’s Magistrates’ Commission – but has also helped to affirm the rule of law, to shore up confidence in the country’s judiciary, and to build the institutions of a still relatively young constitutional state.The problem of long overdue judgements has not been eliminated, though, and the country’s highest court still has to make urgent work of some judgements which have remained pending for much too long – a matter of years, in some cases – and which have resulted in a cloud of uncertainty continuing to hover over the lives of litigants.In the High Court, also, case statistics indicate that some real progress has been made in working away overdue judgements over the past year. The number of overdue judgements in that court has been cut by a third, from 118 at the start of the year to 79 by the end of November.Namibia’s judges will however have to continue to make concerted efforts to get rid of the reputation for delays and delayed judgements that has been built up in recent years.In another busy year for the country’s courts, some of the notable cases finalised were:Quinton Pieters*January 20: Judge Alfred Siboleka sentences Keetmanshoop residents Quinton Pieters (30) and Albertus Cloete (37) in the High Court in Windhoek to effective prison terms of 53 years and 43 years respectively for having robbed and murdered an advisory teacher, Magda Maas (55), in her home in early November 2007. Pieters was also convicted of having raped Maas.*February 7: The prosecution team in the marathon main Caprivi high treason trial closes its case in the High Court at Windhoek Central Prison. In September, Judge Elton Hoff hears three weeks of arguments on a defence application for the discharge of the remaining 109 accused persons at the close of the State’s case, and postpones the matter to February 11 2013 for a ruling. Judge Hoff started hearing testimony in the main part of the trial in August 2004.Teckla Lameck*February 20: Corruption and fraud suspects Teckla Lameck and Kongo Mokaxwa succeed with a legal challenge against a part of the Anti-Corruption Act, when a full bench of the High Court declares the definition of ‘corruptly’ in the Act as unconstitutional. Lameck and Mokaxwa however fail with a constitutional challenge against parts of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act.*February 24: In the High Court at Oshakati, Judge Marlene Tommasi sentences the 42-year-old Jacob Oscar to 35 years’ imprisonment on a charge of murder. Oscar admitted that he had murdered his common law wife, Hilaria Frans, at Etunda in the Outapi district on March 6 2010. Frans, who was a mother of six children, died after being hacked with a panga about two dozen times.
Abisai Ndaumbwa*March 7: A former farmworker, Abisai Ndaumbwa (23), who has been convicted of robbing and murdering an elderly farm resident, Waltraut Volkmann (75), with a panga in the Otavi area on June 9 2009, receives an effective prison term of 40 years from Judge Marlene Tommasi in the High Court at Oshakati.*April 13: Journalist John Grobler scores a legal victory against the Swapo Party, when Acting Judge Kobus Miller rules in the High Court in Windhoek that remarks about Grobler which were posted on the Swapo website in September 2009 were false and defamatory. The ruling party later agrees to pay Grobler N$30 000 in damages.*April 26: Judge Naomi Shivute sentences a 30-year-old father convicted of raping his twin babies, murdering one of the children – five months old – and assaulting both of the twins and their mother in the Otjimbingwe area on June 10 2007, in the High Court in Windhoek to an effective 65 years’ imprisonment.Elton Christiaan*May 31: In the High Court in Windhoek, Judge Alfred Siboleka sentences the 32-year-old Elton Christiaan to a 43-year prison term on charges of murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, and housebreaking and rape. Christiaan was convicted of robbing, raping and murdering a Keetmanshoop resident, Feitjie Brand (75), in her home during the night of February 9 to 10 2008.*June 21: The Supreme Court dismisses an appeal by the minister of justice against an earlier High Court judgement in which the minister was ordered to dismiss Magistrate Leah Shaanika from her post, as requested by the Magistrates’ Commission, after the magistrate had been found guilty on misconduct charges.*June 27: The Supreme Court overturns the acquittal of former National Assembly Secretary Nama Goabab and a co-accused, Abraham George, on corruption charges. In its reasons for its ruling, the court indicates that in terms of the Anti-Corruption Act of 2004 a public servant who abuses his or her public office or position for private gain can be found guilty of corruption.*July 3: A construction worker, Paulus Tomas (28), is sent to prison for 35 years after Judge Christie Liebenberg had convicted him in the High Court at Oshakati of the murder of his girlfriend, Johanna Lazarus (22), at Uuthilindindi, a village in the Oshakati district, on November 29 2010.*July 30: Judge Elton Hoff rules in the High Court in Windhoek that Government is liable to compensate three HIV-positive women who were sterilised in State hospitals without having given their informed consent for the medical procedure.*August 7: A former farm foreman and father of nine children, Ndawedwa Immanuel Shuudeni (45), is sentenced by Judge Marlene Tommasi in the High Court at Oshakati to an effective 45 years’ imprisonment. Shuudeni was found guilty of murdering two men, Muyenga Hausiku and Joseph Philips Angula, and trying to murder Hausiku’s wife, by shooting all of them with a .308 rifle at his employer’s farm in the Rundu district on October 30 2009.*August 9: ‘Cowardly and savage’: Judge Marlene Tommasi’s comment about the incident in which Johannes Panduleni Eino (36), an unemployed resident of a village in the Ondangwa area, murdered his mother, Kaino Petrus (73), after a day of tombo drinking on August 4 2011 by striking her against the head with the blunt side of an axe. The judge sentences Eino, who pleaded guilty to charges of murder and assault, in the High Court at Oshakati to a prison term of 30 years and six months.Johannes Muhongo*August 13: In the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court, a law student at the University of Namibia, Johannes Medusalem Muhongo (20), is ordered to be detained in a psychiatric hospital as a President’s patient after a psychiatrist found him unfit to stand trial due to schizophrenia. Muhongo was accused of murdering a fellow student, Johannes Tukondjeni Shapange (20), in a knife attack at the Unam campus in Windhoek on April 19.*August 20: Having been convicted of murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances, Andreas Shivute Shangemwene (27) is sentenced by Judge Marlene Tommasi in the High Court at Oshakati to a 35-year prison term. He murdered an 18-year-old Grade 12 pupil, Saara Heita, by stabbing her with a knife and cutting her throat when he robbed her of N$33 at a cuca shop in the Ondangwa area on November 20 2010.*September 25: In the first case of its kind in Namibia, Acting Judge Collins Parker rules in the High Court in Windhoek that a critically ill Jehovah’s Witness who had been refusing a potentially life-saving blood transfusion on religious grounds was not fit to exercise her right to refuse such medical treatment.Chief Justice Peter Shivute*October 25: One of Namibia’s most eagerly-awaited and constitutionally important judgements in recent years is delivered by Chief Justice Peter Shivute in the Supreme Court. He announces that five judges of the court have unanimously decided to dismiss opposition parties’ appeal against an earlier High Court judgement in which their challenge to the conduct and outcome of the November 2009 National Assembly election had been rejected.*November 13: The Namibian successfully defends a defamation claim in which the former chief executive officer of the Walvis Bay Municipality, Augustinus Katiti, was suing the newspaper for N$300 000, when Acting Judge Petrus Unengu dismisses Katiti’s claim with costs in the High Court in Windhoek. The judgement is good news for press freedom, since vexatious defamation claims have a dampening effect on free media and democracy, comments Gwen Lister, who was one of the defendants sued by Katiti.Salmon Nakale*November 14: Mariental shop owner Salmon Nakale (34), who has been convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Rebecca Katanga (23), and her sister, Lusia Ndahambelela Erastus (30), in a shooting incident at Mariental on May 9 2009, receives an effective prison term of 50 years from Judge Alfred Siboleka in the High Court in Windhoek.*December 5: In an important judgement for the rule of law, Acting Judge Collins Parker rules in the Labour Court in Windhoek that trade unionist Evilastus Kaaronda and four leaders of a teachers strike were in contempt of court when they failed to comply with a court interdict against the strike in November.*December 7: After a long trial in the High Court in Windhoek, the three men convicted of robbing and murdering a Windhoek resident, Cornelius Swiegers (53), during a comet-watching excursion on January 18 2007 – Festus Nepembe Kiimba (34), Max Kleopas (31), and Josef Taukondjo Shikongo (35) – are sentenced by Judge Alfred Siboleka to an effective 35 years’ imprisonment each.*December 13: The Supreme Court overturns businessman Lazarus Shaduka’s acquittal on a charge of murder, and sentences him to a 20-year prison term for the killing of his wife, Selma Shaimemanya (33), who was shot dead in the couple’s home in Windhoek on July 13 2008. Shaduka promptly becomes a fugitive from justice after slipping across the border into Angola.

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