defamation

A Namibian magistrate has been awarded damages of N$20 000 after an accused, appearing in court before her, handed up a document in which he defamed her. Among other claims, the document, hand-written by the accused, said she was paid by the family of the complainant in the criminal case before her. The magistrate then brought a defamation action in the high court. Now she has won her case and the judge who heard the matter ordered that if the man who defamed her didn’t make her a written apology, the damages award would jump to N$30 000.

In a new judgment of extraordinary importance for freedom of expression and media freedom in Namibia, that country’s highest court has confirmed the development of the common law to give greater protection to the Namibian media so that, as the court put it, its ‘important democratic role of providing information to the public is not imperilled by the risk of defamation claims.’

An opposition political party figure in Namibia has been found to have defamed the wife of the President, Hage Geingob, and was ordered to pay damages at a very significant level to First Lady, Monica Geingos. The high court found that Abed-Nego Hishoono had actually intended to target Geingob with his defamatory social media claims and that Hishoono’s claims that he merely repeated rumours already circulating about Geingos did not lessen the seriousness of his actions.