Detentions in Namibia under emergency legislation — Proclamations AG9 and AG26 — as well as under 'security' laws continue to grow and at least forty people were being detained in March.
Three detainees were recently released after more than five months in detention as a result of a Supreme Court ruling that they should have been granted access to a lawyer when their detentions were renewed after a month. One of the men released was almost immediately redetained.
The three — Martin AKWEENDA and his brother Thomas AKWEENDA (or AKUENDA), and their cousin Absalom LINUS were released after an application brought by a third Akweenda brother, John. A fourth person mentioned in the application, Andreas IMMANUEL (previously reported as Immanuel ANDREAS) was released soon after the application was filed at the end of January.
The three men, all from Onipa in northern Namibia, were detained under Proclamation AG9 in August and September last year. AG9 empowers 'any officer or non-commissioned officer in the security forces' to detain without warrant any individual for a 30-day period, which may be renewed on the order of the Administrator-General for Namibia or the Multi-Party Conference (MPC) administration.
The application for the release of the three was based on an argument that AG9 was directly contrary to a 'Bill of Rights' included in Proclamation R101 which established the authority of the MPC administration in June last year. Furthermore, counsel for the detainees submitted that while AG9 explicitly states that during the initial 30-day period of detention detainees are forbidden access to lawyers except with the permission of the MPC 'cabinet', this is not explicitly stated when detention is extended for longer than 30 days. As the men had been denied legal access, their detention was unlawful.
In his judgement on 13 February Justice Strydom — who turned down a similar challenge in the trial of seven SWAPO members accused under the Terrorism and Internal Security Acts (see TRIALS) — concurred that the detainees should have been granted a legal hearing after 30 days and ordered their release. However, he did not accept that the 'Bill of Rights' invalidated AG9, the Terrorism Act, or other legislation which provided for detention without trial or access to a legal hearing.
