There is simply no denying the personal nature of the courts and the way personality plays itself out in law and judgments. And Swaziland has just lost one of the strongest characters on its judiciary: Ms Mabel Agyemang (HERE). Agyemang J ruled against the government in the Free Education Case (HERE) and had the reasoning of her judgment quite rudely overturned by Maphalala J in a later hearing of a different question in the same case. (Maphalala J should not have overturned her reasoning, as Swazi courts are supposed to recognize precedent, and he was a fellow High Court member, not a judge superior to Agyemang J.) Whether it was this slight that has her packing her bags, or whether there is some other reason she is going, I have no idea. I do know she left by giving the Swazi government a solid kick in the pants: awarding E470,000 (about US$70,000) to a civil servant for a wrongful arrest.
In her place, the King has appointed one acting justice and two judges:
(1) Justice Phillip Levinsohn – Deputy Judge President of the High Court of Kwa-Zulu Natal. A senior judge with extensive corruption experience, including on the corruption investigation of (now President) Jacob Zuma (see the end of a newspaper article, HERE). Levinsohn has apparently been brought in specifically to oversee some of the corruption cases, including against Mr Qhawe Mamba, a cousin to the King. He has been brought in on an acting basis, until 11 January 2011 (!), so he better get cracking if he wants to achieve anything.
(2) Justice Esther Ota – Nigerian-born Sey has cut her teeth in The Gambia, rising up from a Magistrate to be a justice of the Appeals Court (download what could be an autobiographical (!) PDF, HERE). She is one of the Commonwealth judges, that group who work on a circuit, funded by the Commonwealth to get rid of the backlog in needy countries.
(3) Justice Mary Sey – hailing from Sierra Leone, Sey has made a name for herself as a fearless fighter of corruption (see some google results HERE). She is also here for two years with the Commonwealth, scheduled to finish her term (with Ota) in two years which, in Swaziland, is relatively secure tenure (HERE).
It will be interesting to see whether they follow Agyemang’s fearless path, or adopt the stance of the Supreme Court and ensure they are kept on by government on a pay that is simply unjustifiable.
