Suspended Namibian Police inspector general Joseph Shikongo eroded the essential content of the right to demonstrate when he directed that a public demonstration about unemployment in Namibia was not to take place on Independence Day in 2023, an acting judge of the High Court has found.
Acting judge Natasha Bassingthwaighte made the finding in a judgement in which she on Wednesday awarded N$300 000 to activist Michael Amushelelo and N$80 000 to a fellow activist, Dimbulukeni Nauyoma, in connection with their arrest, detention and prosecution in 2023.
The Public Gatherings Proclamation of 1989, on which Shikongo relied when he notified the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters not to stage their demonstration against unemployment on 21 March 2023, cannot be used by the police chief to refuse or prevent anyone from holding a public gathering, Bassingthwaighte said in her judgement.
“The proclamation does not require that permission must be obtained from the inspector general to hold a public gathering or demonstration. It only requires notice to be given. The inspector general can also not use the provision empowering him to impose conditions to refuse or prevent anyone from holding a public gathering,” Bassingthwaighte said.
She also remarked: “To direct that the demonstration be held on a different date other than Independence Day because of an unexplained and unsupported belief that the demonstration would cause feelings of hostility between different sections of the population in my view eroded and negated the essential content of the right to demonstrate.”
Amushelelo and Nauyoma sued the minister of safety and security, the inspector general of the Namibian Police, and the prosecutor general for N$6 million and N$4 million, respectively, after they were found not guilty in October 2023 on charges on which they had been arrested on 21 March 2023.
Amushelelo was held in custody for nearly seven months before he and Nauyoma were acquitted in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in Katutura on charges of public violence, malicious damage to property and incitement of public violence.
Nauyoma was released on bail two weeks after their arrest.
Bassingthwaighte found that the minister and inspector general failed to show that the arrest of Amushelelo and Nauyoma was lawful, and that the police officer who had them arrested did not have a reasonable suspicion that they had committed any of the offences with which they were subsequently charged.
She also found that Amushelelo and Nauyoma were maliciously prosecuted before they were found not guilty.
In addition to awarding the amounts of N$300 000 and N$80 000 to Amushelelo and Nauyoma, Bassingthwaighte ordered the defendants in the matter to pay the legal costs of the two activists, who were represented by lawyer Kadhila Amoomo.
