JUDGE BACKS SWAZI POLICE UNION

The Swazi police officers’ fight to form their own trade union received a boost when a High Court judge ruled that they had a constitutional right to do so.

The judge urged the Swaziland Government to amend the law so that a union could be formed.

Judge Qinisile Mabuza said that existing regulations that banned trade unions were inconsistent with the new Swazi Constitution, which allowed for freedom of association. She also said Swaziland laws need to conform to international standards and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions.

The ruling, which was a dissenting judgment, (the High Court ruled against the police earlier this year) received widespread coverage in the Swazi media. Unexpectedly, even state television and the Swazi Observer (the newspaper that is in effect owned by the king) gave a lot of space to the ruling.

The Times of Swaziland yesterday (30 April 2008) quoted the judge saying Swaziland needed ‘to conform to modern trends in a democratic society in meeting the [union’s] expectations and fulfilling their constitutional rights’.

The Times further reported that the judge said that denying officers their ‘fundamental rights’ to form a union were ‘repugnant to good governance and the rule of law, and particularly that the sanction for forming a union is dismissal, which is a disciplinary measure’.

She called the existing laws banning the union ‘old discriminatory and oppressive’. She went on, ‘They are inconsistent with Chapter III of the constitution. They should be declared null and void. They have no place in a democratic society.’

She is, of course, correct that they have no place in a democratic society. But Swaziland is not a democracy and this judgement proves it. The judgment makes no difference to the law as it stands, because Judge Mabuza is in the minority, even among judges.

This is of great concern, because if Swazis cannot rely on judges to uphold the constitution, who can they depend upon?

The original judgment is being appealed. The Times quoted the union’s lawyer Thulani Maseko saying they had ‘100 percent prospects of success in their appeal’. I wish this were true. Right is on their side, but in Swaziland, where judges wilfully refuse to uphold the constitution, power is not.

See also
SWAZI POLICE REFUSE TO ARREST COLLEAGUES