Two international legal fact-finding missions were meeting Swaziland’s justice minister Chief Mawene Simelane on Thursday morning at the start of their enquiries into the state of the country’s justice system.
The delegations, one from the International Bar Association (IBA) and the other from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), arrived in the country this week.
The leader of the IBA delegation, Phillip Tahmindji said on Wednesday night that it was a coincidence that both teams were in the country at the same time. The teams had, however, decided to jointly meet government officials, judges and other legal officers during their stay.
Each would still render an independent report to their parent bodies.
The fact-finding missions were dispatched after media reports last month of government interference in the operations of the courts and the functioning of the judiciary.
Matters came to a head when Swazi Prime Minister Sibusisu Dlamini said in a statement last month that he would ignore a judgement by the country’s Court of Appeal.
He also accused the court’s six South African judges of having been influenced by ”outside forces” in their judgment. The judges strongly denied this and resigned. The country’s lawyers also went on strike in protest, bringing the courts to a standstill.
Swazi judges, led by Chief Justice Stanley Sapire, have since announced that they would continue in their posts and would judge without regard to pressures, threats or intimidation by the executive. – Sapa