Walters is new Ombudsman

FORMER Acting Prosecutor General John Walters has been appointed as Namibia’s Ombudsman.

The President’s appointment of Walters as Ombudsman with effect from July 1 was announced from the chambers of the Chief Justice on Friday. Walters will be Namibia’s third permanently appointed Ombudsman since Independence.He will be taking over the position that Acting Judge Simpson Mtambanengwe has been holding in an acting capacity since mid-September last year, when the Ombudsman’s post became vacant with the appointment of second Ombudsman Bience Gawanas as an African Union Commissioner.Walters has been serving as an advisor to the prosecution team involved in the Caprivi high treason case in the High Court at Grootfontein since the beginning of this year.Before that, he had been serving as Acting Prosecutor General from December 2002 to the end of 2003.Walters said on Friday that he would be taking leave of the treason case prosecution team, which had built up a sense of camaraderie in the months that he has been working with the team, with some regret.He added though that he was confident that, once the treason trial got under way properly, the prosecution team would carry out their task with success.”We have a good case,” he said about the treason case.Walters, who was born in Karasburg in 1956, comes to the Ombudsman’s post with more than two decades of experience in various capacities in the justice system behind him.He graduated with a B.A. LL.B. degree from the University of Western Cape in South Africa in 1980, and the next year started his legal career as a public prosecutor stationed at Keetmanshoop.In 1985 he changed course in his career, taking up a post as a magistrate, stationed in Windhoek.Shortly after Independence he joined the Office of the Prosecutor General, where he was promoted to deputy prosecutor general two years later.In 1996 – having been involved in such high-profile cases as the inquest into the 1989 assassination of Swapo member Anton Lubowski and the high treason trial of a group of men who were accused of hatching a right-wing plot to overthrow the newly-independent Namibian Government – he resigned from that office again, to practice law outside Government for the next six years.Walters said on Friday that his prime goal in his new post would be to try to ensure that anyone directing complaints to the Office of the Ombudsman should have their matters investigated and dealt with as quickly as possible.From his years in the justice system he was well aware that one of the prime frustrations that people experienced in the country’s courts was with the delays that marked court proceedings; the same should not be the case with the Office of the Ombudsman, he said.The Constitution assigns a range of functions to the Ombudsman.These include the duty to investigate complaints about violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, abuse of power, corruption, “unfair, harsh, insensitive or discourteous treatment of an inhabitant of Namibia by an official in the employ of any organ of Government”, and complaints about the over-utilisation of Namibia’s living natural resources, the irrational exploitation of non-renewable resources, or the degradation and destruction of the country’s ecosystem and failure to protect the beauty and character of Namibia.The Constitution also gives the Ombudsman the power to approach a court to have “offending action or conduct” or “offending procedures” stopped.He would not hesitate to make use of these powers should the need for it arise, Walters said.Acting Judge Mtambanengwe is expected to return to active duty on the bench.His appointment as an acting Judge of the High Court was, in early February, extended to the end of December.He is also an acting Judge of Appeal in the Supreme Court, where his term runs to the end of August this year.Walters will be Namibia’s third permanently appointed Ombudsman since Independence.He will be taking over the position that Acting Judge Simpson Mtambanengwe has been holding in an acting capacity since mid-September last year, when the Ombudsman’s post became vacant with the appointment of second Ombudsman Bience Gawanas as an African Union Commissioner.Walters has been serving as an advisor to the prosecution team involved in the Caprivi high treason case in the High Court at Grootfontein since the beginning of this year.Before that, he had been serving as Acting Prosecutor General from December 2002 to the end of 2003.Walters said on Friday that he would be taking leave of the treason case prosecution team, which had built up a sense of camaraderie in the months that he has been working with the team, with some regret.He added though that he was confident that, once the treason trial got under way properly, the prosecution team would carry out their task with success.”We have a good case,” he said about the treason case.Walters, who was born in Karasburg in 1956, comes to the Ombudsman’s post with more than two decades of experience in various capacities in the justice system behind him.He graduated with a B.A. LL.B. degree from the University of Western Cape in South Africa in 1980, and the next year started his legal career as a public prosecutor stationed at Keetmanshoop.In 1985 he changed course in his career, taking up a post as a magistrate, stationed in Windhoek.Shortly after Independence he joined the Office of the Prosecutor General, where he was promoted to deputy prosecutor general two years later.In 1996 – having been involved in such high-profile cases as the inquest into the 1989 assassination of Swapo member Anton Lubowski and the high treason trial of a group of men who were accused of hatching a right-wing plot to overthrow the newly-independent Namibian Government – he resigned from that office again, to practice law outside Government for the next six years.Walters said on Friday that his prime goal in his new post would be to try to ensure that anyone directing complaints to the Office of the Ombudsman should have their matters investigated and dealt with as quickly as possible.From his years in the justice system he was well aware that one of the prime frustrations that people experienced in the country’s courts was with the delays that marked court proceedings; the same should not be the case with the Office of the Ombudsman, he said.The Constitution assigns a range of functions to the Ombudsman.These include the duty to investigate complaints about violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, abuse of power, corruption, “unfair, harsh, insensitive or discourteous treatment of an inhabitant of Namibia by an official in the employ of any organ of Government”, and complaints about the over-utilisation of Namibia’s living natural resources, the irrational exploitation of non-renewable resources, or the degradation and destruction of the country’s ecosystem and failure to protect the beauty and character of Namibia.The Constitution also gives the Ombudsman the power to approach a court to have “offending action or conduct” or “offending procedures” stopped.He would not hesitate to make use of these powers should the need for it arise, Walters said.Acting Judge Mtambanengwe is expected to return to active duty on the bench.His appointment as an acting Judge of the High Court was, in early February, extended to the end of December.He is also an acting Judge of Appeal in the Supreme Court, where his term runs to the end of August this year.