Judicial Service Commission

When Judge Charles Hungwe from Zimbabwe arrived in Lesotho earlier this year to start work on a series of controversial trials, he was given a warm reception in the local media. But since then the accused in some of the cases over which he was due to preside proved rather less than welcoming. In fact, 16 accused initially due to stand trial before him, led by Lesotho's former defence minister, Tseliso Mokhosi, have brought an application for his appointment – and the appointment of all other foreign judges who might hear the pending cases – to be declared unconstitutional. 

When a number of court clerks obtained an order temporarily stopping the country’s Judicial Service Commission and the Chief Justice from recruiting and appointing a certain category of magistrate until their employment dispute was fully considered by the high court, the stage was set: some high court judge would have to consider whether Malawi’s top judge and judicial appointment authority were acting illegally. Judge Zione Ntaba drew the short straw.

MORE than 40 former magistrates have taken another step in their fight against the Judicial Service Commission of Kenya. The magistrates have been contesting their 2003 dismissal, when they were “retired in the public interest”, a compulsory move made as part of “radical surgery” intended to deal with corruption in the judiciary at the time. They say they were wrongly dismissed and initially took their case to the high court’s constitutional division.