Apparently, Namibia is suffering from a serious domestic judicial drought.
Our local legal minds prefer the greener pastures of private commercial practice. Try asking a senior local advocate in Windhoek to sit on the High Court bench for a government salary.
They run like they’re being dragged into a Covid-19 quarantine tent. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why we’re importing retired legal stock.
It’s all because our local legal stock refuses to enter the state kraal.
We now have to search databases of old-age homes across neighbouring countries just to keep the wheels of justice turning.
Obviously not the Katutura Old Age Home.
In case you missed it, we recently had to carry out a sophisticated operation at our border posts. Just the other day, a truck arrived at the Buitepos border carrying a fresh shipment of retired judicial stock from Zimbabwe, Malawi and Botswana.
These are seasoned, free-range institutional Nguni bulls, toughened by decades of court battles.
However, importing live legal minds is a highly sensitive process requiring strict veterinary and ideological checks. According to insider reports, the border procedures for imported judges are brutal.
Before a retired judge from Harare or Lilongwe can even step onto Namibian soil, they must first pass through the judicial dipping tank for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).
Border officials carefully inspect their robes for ideological ticks or institutional parasites that may have clung to them during previous employment under slightly more authoritarian conditions.
We simply cannot risk an outbreak of political footprint disease (PFD) in our courts. PFD, for those unfamiliar, is a dangerous variant of FMD that affects legally trained stock.
You can imagine the chaos if the stock enters without proper checks.
To avoid this, the judicial overlords have established a temporary quarantine facility just outside Gobabis. There, the exotic judicial imports are kept in isolation for 21 days while they acclimatise to our environment.
During this period, technicians gently wean them off their native legal systems and pump them full of local constitutional vaccines.
They’re forced to read the Namibian Constitution three times a day while listening to a nonstop loop of old NBC news broadcasts.
This helps them fully appreciate the delicate nuances of public holidays and tender board scandals.
It’s a beautiful system. Period. But I have to ask what exactly we are giving these countries in return, considering free and fair trade is supposed to be a two-way street. Of mati?
If we’re constantly importing top-tier legal intellect to settle our domestic disputes, what exactly is Namibia exporting back down the line? Are we trading weaner calves for Supreme Court judgements?
Or is there a simpler like? I don’t know. Use your own imagination. Og!
Is the barter institutional or personal? Is it about common law or common lore? Geography or club membership? Are we giving them retired nurses, bus drivers or maybe retired politicians? Wait, it can’t be in exchange for retired politicians?
Let’s be honest. No foreign country, not even the most desperate nation on earth, is going to accept a shipment of retired Namibian politicians. What exactly can they do with that?
I promise you I have nothing against retired politicians. I just want to know what it is we can realistically exchange. If nobody has an answer, we can then all agree this is not straightforward trade. Perhaps it is true that nobody, and I mean, nobody, wants to sit on the bench. Really?
So we remain trapped in this strange economic loop, paying premium taxpayer dollars for imported judicial wisdom while our own highly educated law graduates wander around Independence Avenue hunting for internships.
Perhaps the local legal minds are simply not mature enough for the bench. Maybe judges are like premium biltong that must hang in a dark room for 70 years before they’re ready for consumption.
Until our agricultural and judicial ministries figure out how to properly cultivate local legal talent without bankrupting the state, we’ll just have to keep monitoring border updates.
Next time you drive past Gobabis and see a line of distinguished gentlemen in black robes, big plastic ear tags and an identity brands on their thighs, do not be alarmed.
They are our latest stock of judges coming to judge.
Not to breed judges, no, we don’t run that type of breeding programme here.
