SWAZILANDS’ JUDICIAL CRISIS REACHES CLIMAX AS PRIME MINISTER SEEKS TO ARREST CHIEF JUSTICE
What began as an unprecedented cabinet witch hunt by the Prime Minister of Swaziland who sought to abuse the Anti Corruption Commission to deal with a cabinet minister has spiralled into perhaps one of biggest judicial crisis in the country after the 28 November 2002 Statement, as the state has now issued an arrest warrant against the country’s Chief Justice for allegedly defeating the ends of justice. The men at the centre of the crisis are the minister of Justice and constitutional affairs, Sibusiso Shongwe and the Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini. Sibusiso Shongwe is the regime’s golden boy within legal circles and retains immense support within the royal family as shown by the fact that the Prime Minister has so far failed to get rid of him. SHONGWE Shongwe first rose to prominence when he was appointed into the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), a body entrusted with advising the king on judicial matters. Being appointed into that body is a sign of being cosy with the regime but Shongwe used it as a springboard to launch his political career by seeking to undermine the efforts of the country’s Law Society to have a voice on human rights issues in the country. Shongwe interpreted the Law Society’s advocacy for human rights as advocating for regime change. He still has pending issues with the Law society’s disciplinary tribunal which he has deliberately chosen not to answer to till today. After having shown his loyalty to the monarchy Shongwe was catapulted to be a minister of the crown, a political career which was fraught with disturbing allegations from day one as he fell out with the Principal secretary in his ministry, Thembinkosi Mamba, whom he recently told a parliamentary committee he sometimes felt like stabbing. This is they sort of person that Mswati believes is best suited to head the ministry that deals with the judiciary, the arm of law he uses to suppress dissent. It was under his watch and with his full support that the two columnists Bheki Makhubu and Thulani Maseko were arrested for criticising the manner in which the law was abused by the country’s chief justice. ARREST WARRANT The recent attempt to have an arrest warrant issued against Shongwe by the courts on orders from the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) are politically motivated and stem from the Prime Minister who feels Shongwe is dispensable, a view not shared by his superiors. It shows the weakness of the country’s system of governance that the Prime Minister and his ministers are both appointed by the king, yet the minister is subordinate to the Premier. Barnabas has no authority to fire Shongwe hence the need to resort to other means to get rid of him or at the very least try to make him toe the line by having a criminal charge hovering over him. Barnabas’ move backfired however because the country’s Chief Justice would have none of it since he has publicly fallen out with the Prime Minister and views Shongwe as his long time ally from their time in the JCS, which the Chief Justice also heads. The Chief Justice therefore dismissed the application for the arrest warrant on grounds that “an arrest warrant cannot be done against His Majesty’s sitting minister without proper clearance.” Proper clearance in this instance means the king’s approval. The case against Shongwe brought forward by the Anti Corruption involves sums of money deposited into his law firm’s trust account. It is a frivolous case when one considers the more serious cases that the law Society brought against him. CHIEF JUSTICE RAMODIBEDI The Chief Justice’s failure to issue this arrest warrant and his order to all judges that they should not handle it brought the Prime Minister’s wrath on him as he now faces possible impeachment altogether for a long list of misdeeds including defeating the ends of justice by issuing the order that nobody should handle the Sibusiso Shongwe case without his approval. It has been further reported that a high court judge, Stanley Maphalala, has issued an arrest warrant against Justice Ramodibedi and another high court judge, Justice Mpendulo Simelane. These two arrest warrants were brought to court by the same Anti Corruption Commission that brought case against minister Shongwe. However, these are for different cases relating to the Chief Justice’s abuse of power when he handpicked Simelane to preside over a case involving him and the Swaziland revenue Authority. This Chief Justice who now has numerous cases of corruption, abuse of power and defeating the end of justice brought against him is the same Chief Justice who the Prime Minister once arrogantly stated he was extremely proud of. Furthermore, most of the charges now issued against him date back to over two years ago. CAT’S PAWS It is clear that Ramodibedi has now served his intended purpose of performing the regime’s dirty work within the judiciary and like a used paper serviette the time is now ripe for him to be discarded as he long lost the public’s confidence, especially with his personal vendetta case against Maseko and Makhubu, a case that brought the country’s lack of respect human rights into sharp focus and may have contributed to the country’s losing its AGOA benefits. The same is true of Sibusiso Shongwe who occupied one of the most vacated seats in the cabinet. His time may be up as well. What is of concern to the country’s citizens is that after these two have been replaced the crisis will continue because the problem is not the people who sit in those two positions but rather the policies of the government that appoints them. It is a despotic government which has no respect for the rule of law as evidenced by the arrogant, shocking but true declaration by the Prime Minister on the 28th of November 2002 that the king’s government was not obliged to uphold judicial rulings. 18th April, 2015 As long as the country remains an executive monarchy it will remain in a state of judicial crisis as there can never be any separation of powers because the monarchy holds all the governing powers of the judiciary, the executive and the legislature. Issued by the Swaziland Solidarity Network ( SSN ) -- -- NEW!!!! SSN FORUM IS ON FACEBOOK!!!! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Swaziland Solidarity Network Forum Google Group. 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