Social activist Michael Amushelelo has been held in contempt of court and arrested after referring to judges as “puppets” and “little gods” in the Windhoek High Court on Monday.
Acting judge Doris Hans-Kaumbi held Amushelelo in contempt of court in a ruling delivered in the High Court on Monday evening.
Hans-Kaumbi said statements made by Amushelelo were a clear attack on the independence of the judiciary.
She recounted that he said, during a hearing before her on Monday afternoon, that judges are puppets who answer to the authority that appointed them, that they would not bite the hand that feeds them, and that they think of themselves as “little gods”.
After ordering Amushelelo’s arrest, Hans-Kaumbi said he should be detained at Windhoek Correctional Facility until Wednesday morning, when he should again appear in court before her to address her on the sentence to be imposed on him for contempt of court.
Amushelelo made the remarks about judges when he addressed Hans-Kaumbi on an application by him for her to step down from a case in which Namibian Police inspector general Joseph Shikongo is suing him.
Amushelelo applied for Hans-Kaumbi’s recusal after she refused to postpone an urgent application that Shikongo filed against him on Thursday last week. Amushelelo requested a postponement to give him more time to get legal representation in the matter.
Shikongo is asking the court to order Amushelelo to immediately remove remarks about Shikongo that he posted on his Facebook page early last week.
In the remarks, Amushelelo referred to a fatal road collision in which Shikongo was involved in northern Namibia in December 2022 and about which he has not faced any criminal charges until now.
Shikongo is alleging that Amushelelo’s remarks breach a court order made by a judge of the Windhoek High Court in October last year, when Shikongo and Amushelelo settled a defamation case in which Shikongo was suing Amushelelo for N$1 million.
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