New Acting Judges at High Court

FOUR new Acting Judges are set to start their tenures on the High Court bench today.
For two of the Acting Judges, senior counsel Theo Frank and Claus Hinrichsen, the Judges’ chambers at the High Court are already familiar, both having served on the bench before.

For former law firm partners Gerson Hinda and Marlene Tommasi, though, this will be their first stint as Acting Judges.The four presidential appointments were announced by the office of the Chief Justice, who chairs the Judicial Service Commission.Frank, who served as a High Court Judge in the 1990s before he resigned to return to private practice as a member of the Society of Advocates of Namibia, has been appointed an Acting Judge until end July. He last served as an Acting Judge in 2008.Hinrichsen, a senior partner at LorentzAngula Inc., who also served as an Acting Judge last year and in 2007, is set to be on the High Court bench until September 4.Hinda and Tommasi have been appointed until September 15.Hinda was admitted as an advocate in Namibia in 1989, after he obtained a B.Iuris degree at the University of Zululand and an LL.B. degree at the University of Natal. After practising law until 1993, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and studied at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in the United States, graduating with an LL.M. Degree in 1994.Hinda and Tommasi were partners for five years in the firm Dammert & Hinda before he returned to the Society of Advocates of Namibia in March 2004.Tommasi, who practises with Dammert Law Chambers, will be one of only two women on the male-dominated High Court bench.She studied at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and graduated with a B.Proc Degree from the University of South Africa (UNISA). After completing her articles with Karuaihe & Conradie, she was admitted as a legal practitioner in 1993. She has had her own practice since 1997.werner@namibian.com.na