High Court judges down tools

Swaziland's High Court judges on Monday embarked on a work stoppage in protest against the palace's alleged refusal to submit to the rule of law. "The judges are asking what we are all asking, whether this is a country of laws? If so, respect for the law must be complete and absolute," lawyer Lucas Maziya told IRIN. Last week, six South African judges who made up the country's Court of Appeal, resigned en masse after Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini said the government would not recognise two court judgements that challenged King Mswati's III's right to rule by decree. Last week, the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Maziya's clients, two criminal suspects accused of rape, who challenged a royal decree which denies bail to rape suspects. The appeal court ruled that Mswati III had no constitutional mandate to override parliament by issuing his own decrees. Dlamini also blocked the execution of another appeal court ruling, that Police Commissioner Edgar Hillary be arrested for contempt of court for ignoring a high court ruling that he permit the resettlement of political detainees evicted by Mswati from their ancestral lands when the king appointed his brother the new chief of their area. The appeal court judges resigned after the prime minister said their rulings had been influenced by external forces. "The statement that the government of Swaziland does not intend to recognise the two judgments of the Court of Appeal is intolerable," Judge President Charles Leon said in a statement. He added: "The suggestion that the government believes the judges of the Court of Appeal are influenced by forces outside the system and have not acted independently is rejected with the contempt it deserves." Meanwhile, business and religious groups have expressed concern over the growing friction betwen the judiciary and the government. A joint statement by the Swaziland Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Federation of Swaziland Employers said: "The business community of Swaziland has grave concerns with the deteriorating state of affairs with regard to the rule of law and independence of the judiciary in the kingdom." The Council of Swaziland Churches echoed those concerns, saying it feared anarchy in the country, and expressed the "greatest disappointment at the blatant abuse and disregard for the rule of law by the government". The Swaziland Law Society vowed to go on strike after it failed at the weekend to convince prime minister Dlamini to honour the appeal court rulings. Law Society president Paul Shilubane said in a statement: "The current conditions are no longer conducive for lawyers because government has overturned court judgments at a whim. It would be pointless for lawyers to continue going to courts under such conditions." To protest what they say is government's disregard of rule of law, the executives of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) and the Swaziland National Association of Civil Servants announced a national workers stay-away for the 19 to 20 December. Both labour groups are affiliated with the Swaziland Democratic Alliance, which seeks a popularly-elected government under which the king would function as a national figurehead. "We contend that modern society must be ruled by laws that government respects," SFTU secretary-general Jan Sithole told IRIN. Diplomatic envoys stationed in the capital Mbabane are monitoring development cautiously. "Obviously, when government ignores court decisions for political reasons, this is bad news," one European diplomat told IRIN. More details