Metal grilles that enclosed the docks of two courtrooms in the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility have been removed after repeated complaints from former attorney general and minister of justice Sacky Shanghala.
The dock enclosures, which, according to Shanghala, made accused persons appear as if they are dangerous criminals or animals in zoo cages, were removed three weeks ago.
Office of the Judiciary deputy executive director Innocent Kandandu said this in a sworn statement filed at the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
The metal grilles were removed three days after Shanghala and two other accused in the Fishrot case, James Hatuikulipi and Pius Mwatelulo, filed an urgent application in which they are asking the High Court to order the removal of the dock enclosure in the courtroom in which proceedings in their case have been taking place since September last year.
Kandandu says in his sworn statement that since the grating between the dock and the rest of the courtroom used for the Fishrot case has been removed, the orders that Shanghala, Hatuikulipi and Mwatelulo are asking the court to make with their application have become academic.
Shanghala, Hatuikulipi and Mwatelulo want the court to order the prosecutor general not to continue to prosecute them in the courtroom on the grounds of Windhoek Correctional Facility used for the Fishrot case for the past year.
They have also given notice that they will be asking the court to declare that they will not receive a fair trial if they are prosecuted in a courtroom that infringes on their rights to dignity and to be presumed innocent.
They are further asking the court to declare that the taking of photographs and video recordings showing them in the grille-enclosed dock is a violation of their rights to dignity and a fair trial.
In addition to those orders, they intend to apply for an order directing the Office of the Judiciary and the Ministry of Justice to make chairs with back rests and Wi-Fi access available for their use in the courtroom used for their trial.
In a sworn statement filed at the court, Shanghala says he and his co-accused “were subjected to the degrading exercise of being put in handcuffs” in full view of “the gawking public” and the media during their first appearances in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court following their arrest near the end of November 2019.
The grille between the accused in this case and the rest of the courtroom depicts him as a dangerous person, which he is not, Shanghala says.
“My presentation as such negates and impinges upon my right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” Shanghala says in his affidavit.
“I am treated degradingly and humiliated as I am viewed as a dangerous criminal,” he also says.
Shanghala adds that his right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty cannot survive when he is “paraded into and out of court as a dangerous criminal and from that cage like a monkey in a zoo”.
Being seen by the judge and filmed or photographed by the media while he is in the enclosed dock is demeaning, and he doubts he will receive a fair trial if the trial is held with the dock enclosure in place, Shanghala says as well.
Kandandu notes in his statement that Shanghala and his co-accused have been appearing in the same courtroom since September last year, and that they filed their application about the dock enclosure only on 13 September this year.
Because they have waited for a year before they filed their case, it should not be heard as an urgent matter, Kandandu says.
The application is scheduled to be heard on 11 October.
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