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BETHANY - Kudliwani Women’s Forum is going out of its way to donate to needy children.
The organisation donated 73 pairs of shoes to Bethany Primary School pupils.
Uviwe Dlamini, a teacher at the school and a member of the group, said she had asked for donations from the organisation. She said through Lungile Dlamini, who is the founder of the group, she was able to get the donations.
Uviwe said the situation was very bad yet the children were determined to come to school. “We have a lot of vulnerable children who need assistance and we request that members of the public assist where they can.”
Meanwhile, lack of school shoes is not the only challenge the pupils at Bethany
Primary School are facing. Uviwe revealed that menstrual hygiene was still
After listing the matters in which Robinson Bertram has represented the chief justice and the JSC including impeachment of two Judges (Mpendulo Simelane and Sipho Nkosi), the a challenge at the school as many of the girls struggled to buy sanitary towels. newspaper editor proceeds to what he refers to as the main issue, the unending appointments of acting judges and magistrates. These continuous acting appointments were also the subject matter of the Judiciary’s appearance before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in Parliament where the acting registrar of the Supreme Court was asked why it was taking long to confirm the acting appointments.
According to a report in a local newspaper on Monday May 23, 2022, Member of Parliament (MP Manzi Zwane) is quoted as saying, “If I recall correctly, our Constitution provides that they should be acting for one month before their confirmation but now it has been almost a year,”.
MP Manzi Zwane is correct about the provisions of Section 153(5) of the Constitution which gives power to the chief justice after consulting with the JSC to make acting appointments for a period not exceeding one month. Most importantly, section stipulates that the appointment is unrenewable.
In his opinion, the newspaper editor emphasises that the acting appointment not exceeding one month is non-renewable and he goes on to state that “In the event the CJ wants to extend the acting appointment, he has to seek the King’s consent and then have that person continue to act in the position for a period not exceeding three months. That extension is to allow for the person to deliver judgment or to do any other thing in relation to proceedings that were commenced before that person previously to the expiry of the acting appointment.”
Again here, the newspaper correctly cites Section 153(6) of the Constitution.
In response to the PAC enquiry about the worrisome acting appointments, the acting registrar of the Supreme Court is reported to have said that these were beyond her scope. She was correct. This does not, however, dispense or do away with the need to account in this regard. Indeed, there is a case to answer as the title of the opinion piece states. These acting appointments deserve a whole discourse dedicated to them and the Law Society proposes to scrutinise them for the benefit of readers of its discourse in the near future.
SATURDAY MAY 21, 2022 OPINION
One Saturday was not enough for the scrutiny of the conduct of the chief justice and the JSC as the next Weekend Analysis opinion (again by Welcome Dlamini in the Eswatini News edition of Saturday May 21, 2022) screamed: ‘THE JUDICIARY IS NOT SOMEONE’S PROPERTY’. In this opinion, the newspaper editor complains about lack of accountability citing the resistance of the chief justice and the Judicial Service Commission to a probe of the office of the Master of the High Court by
She said this resulted in absenteeism when the girls had their menstrual cycle. “We do not want cash but we need the sanitary pads,” she said.
Uviwe revealed that in 2014, she started an initiative to assist girls after realising the increased absenteeism due to the lack of sanitary pads. She revealed that one Sibongiseni Mamba has been the main donor at the school since 2017.
Also donating was Kudliwani Women’s Forum group and Girls for Girls group. However, Uviwe requested that companies should adopt the schools so that there was a guarantee all the time that the schools would be assisted.
Further, Uviwe said many of the girls admitted that they still were not able to afford sanitary pads or any other necessities for menstrual health. a Parliament Select Committee created after reports of gross maladministration, abuse of power and embezzlement of funds in the office of the Master emerged.With disturbing reports emerging on the lack of safety of estate funds deposited with the Office of the Master of the High Court, this will undoubtedly be the subject of a future discourse of the Law Society.
THE CJ’S ALLOCATION OF JUDGES TO HEAR MATTERS
The opinion piece proceeds to protest about the participation of the Chief Justice in the allocation of Judges to hear a matter in which he and his JSC are a party. The newspaper editor correctly contends that the Principal judge in the High Court, Judge Mabuza should be the one to select the Judges to hear the matter. This is the position of the Law Society which it has repeatedly agitated for dating back to the time of the former Chief Justice Ramodibedi. The Law Society says that the chief justice must, in compliance with Section 150(5) of the constitution, empower the principal judge to allocate matters to judges in the High Court. Section 150(5) of the Constitution provides that the Chief Justice shall designate in writing the most senior judge of the High Court to be the principal Judge of the High Court to preside and exercise such functions as may be stated in the designation.
Welcome develops the point by equating Judge Mabuza to a Deputy Chief Justice and pleads for respect for her position which she must be allowed to fully discharge the responsibilities of.There is a lot of force in this submission. It is not in the interests of justice for the chief justice to allocate matters to judges beginning at the High Court right through to the Supreme Court, where there is an additional layer of a review under Section 148(2) of the Constitution. For the benefit of the reader who is unfamiliar with the operations of the courts, it is important to paint a clearer picture of the process of the escalation of disputes in what the constitution refers to as Superior Courts. An appeal against a High Court decision is determined by the Supreme Court sitting as an Appeal Court. Section 148(2) permits the same Supreme Court to review its own decision made as a Court of Appeal but this is obviously under exceptional circumstances. The chief justice is still the one who allocates judges to hear the Section 148(2) review. Ironically, the same newspaper (Eswatini News) dedicated a whole page on Saturday May 28, 2022 to a matter in which the allocation of judges by the chief justice is hotly disputed. In fact, the newspaper, in its May 14, 2021 edition counted no less than four (4) matters in which the chief justice participated as a litigant. In these circumstances, how does the chief justice continue to allocate the judges to hear the matter?