Memorial service for judge Hannah

A MEMORIAL service for former High Court judge Nic Hannah, who died last month, is scheduled to take place in Windhoek tomorrow.

The memorial service will be held in the chapel of the Gammams cemetery in Pionierspark at 15h00 tomorrow, Hannah’s daughter, Jacquie Lohmann, told The Namibian.

Hannah died in a Windhoek hospital on 14 December – five days before he would have reached the age of 77. His wife, advocate Anna-Marie Engelbrecht, also died last year, passing away at the age of 60 on 2 October.

Hannah served as a judge of the High Court of Namibia from 1991 until his retirement at the end of 2005.

He practised law in London from 1966 to 1979, after which he was appointed a judge of the High Court of Botswana.

He was appointed chief justice of Swaziland in 1985, and in 1991 took up a post in the High Court of Namibia. He on occasion also served as an acting judge of appeal in Namibia’s Supreme Court.

Hannah was highly rated in Namibian legal circles, with the president of the Society of Advocates of Namibia, senior counsel Andrew Corbett, last month paying tribute to him as having “displayed the finest qualities in a judge – that of being independent-minded, fearless and impartial”.

Following Hannah’s death, High Court Judge President Petrus Damaseb described him as “a judges’ judge”, and said he was “a towering jurist of sharp intellect and great humanity who was imbued with unmeasurable common sense”.

At the same time, Chief Justice Peter Shivute remarked that Hannah had served the judiciary of Namibia with dedication and distinction, and that he and his post-independence colleagues had laid a strong foundation on which Namibia’s judicial values were now anchored.