Swazi lawyers setting up own courts

23 August 2011 - 14:39 By Sapa-AFP
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Gavel. File photo.
Gavel. File photo.
Image: Times Media Group

Striking lawyers in Swaziland have agreed to create their own legal forum to hear cases as a three-week-old judicial crisis continues to paralyse the country's courts, their organisation says.

"There has been a complete breakdown in the judiciary and we cannot subject people to this. The litigants out there are suffering. You have to restore the dignity of the courts," Lucky Howe, an attorney and member of the Swaziland Law Society, told AFP.

He said the Law Society took the decision at a meeting late Monday.

According to Howe, the Law Society will select a panel of "very, very senior attorneys" to act as judges.

Hearings could be held in board rooms at private legal firms, as long as they had recording devices.

Rulings would be binding, he said, because they would be based on existing arbitration laws.

Courts in Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy, have been paralysed for three weeks after lawyers began an indefinite strike calling for the removal of Chief Justice Michael Ramodibedi.

They say the boycott will continue until the Judicial Services Commission agrees to investigate a dossier of complaints they have compiled on the chief justice, including allegations of sexual and professional misconduct.

The commission, which is headed by Ramodibedi, has so far refused.

Relations between Ramodibedi and the legal fraternity have become increasingly acrimonious since he summarily suspended High Court Judge Thomas Masuku in June.

Masuku is seen as a rare independent voice on the kingdom's high court.

He is accused of insulting King Mswati III in one of his judgements, and was subjected to a closed-door disciplinary hearing on August 11.

The outcome of the hearing has not yet been announced, drawing condemnation from regional legal bodies.

Amnesty International called the hearing "blatantly unfair".

Meanwhile, some 150 protesters from civil society groups marched through the Swazi capital Tuesday demanding the chief justice's removal.

Swaziland has been gripped by mounting protest in recent months as Mswati faces calls for reform from pro-democracy activists and civil servants angry over proposals to slash their salaries amid a financial crisis that has seen the kingdom nearly run out of cash.

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