Windhoek Regional Court magistrate Alexis Diergaardt, who lost a battle with Covid-19 on Sunday, was a hardworking judicial officer with a sense of fairness, lawyers who appeared in trials before her have commented following her death.
Diergaardt died at the age of 48 in a Windhoek hospital where she had been treated for the novel coronavirus disease for about a week and a half.
She served as a magistrate in the Windhoek Regional Court since 2015, and was also an acting judge in the Oshakati High Court during 2020.
The chairperson of the Magistrates Commission, judge Orben Sibeya, said yesterday that Diergaardt “was a well-respected judicial officer and a revered member of the judiciary”.
“The bench has suffered a great loss”, Sibeya stated.
Public prosecutor Filemon Nyau, who has been representing the state in criminal trials before Diergaardt over the past five years, described her as hardworking.
“She was very fair,” he said, adding that Diergaardt would make sure he understood her reasons when she ruled against the prosecution in a trial, and that while she at times imposed heavy sentences, in many cases she also showed lenience towards convicted persons.
Diergaardt was tough on wildlife crimes and sexual offences, which lay close to her heart, though, Nyau said.
“All in all, she was really a good magistrate,” he remarked.
Veteran defence lawyer Jan Wessels represented numerous accused persons in cases before Diergaardt over the years. “Justice lost a good magistrate,” he commented yesterday, noting that it happened rarely that Diergaardt was not ready to deliver a judgement on the date it was scheduled to be handed down.
“She was always willing to work, and work hard. She was not scared of work,” he said. “Her work was of a good quality.”
He also remarked: “She understood the law well.”
Fellow defence lawyer Milton Engelbrecht recounted that he represented clients in cases before Diergaardt on numerous occasions. “She was objective on the facts,” Engelbrecht said.
“She sometimes found my people not guilty, sometimes she convicted them,” he recalled. “In my opinion she applied the law objectively and she was fair in her judgements, also when it came to sentencing.”
Diergaardt was a regional court magistrate since 2010 – first stationed at Otjiwarongo and since 2015 based in Windhoek.
She previously worked as a public prosecutor for two years, before first being appointed as a magistrate in 1998.
Diergaardt was the president of the Magistrates and Judges Association of Namibia from 2009 to 2015, and represented magistrates as a member of the Magistrates Commission from 2011 to 2014.
She completed her school education in Stellenbosch, South Africa, and thereafter obtained law degrees from the University of the Western Cape and the University of South Africa in 1996 and 2012 respectively.
Diergaardt is survived by her husband, Ronald Diergaardt, who is also hospitalised in a serious condition due to Covid-19.
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