Acting judges appointed full-time

TWO acting judges of the High Court, Orben Sibeya and Eileen Rakow, have been appointed as judges in a permanent capacity, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) announced on Friday.

Sibeya and Rakow have both been serving as acting judges for more than a year, and the president has now appointed them as full-time judges on a recommendation of the JSC, the commission said in a statement.

Rakow’s appointment is effective from the start of October, while Sibeya’s is from the beginning of December.

Sibeya was practising law with his own firm before his appointment as an acting judge from the start of July last year.

He was a prosecutor and deputy prosecutor general in the Office of the Prosecutor General, prior to going into private practice in 2011.

He obtained two degrees in law at the University of Namibia in 1998 and 2000.

Rakow was the chief of operations in the Office of the Ombudsman, where she had been working since 2008, before her appointment as an acting judge.

Previously, she served as a magistrate and as a prosecutor.

She graduated at the University of the Orange Free State in South Africa with a bachelor’s degree in law in 1992, and obtained a master’s degree in law from the University of South Africa in 2005.

With Rakow’s appointment, the number of women serving as full-time judges at Namibia’s High Court will increase to seven.

The court currently has 11 permanently appointed male judges.