No sufficient evidence in redline matter – judge

Judge Shafimana Ueitele on Thursday dismissed an application to have the veterinary cordon fence (redline) removed, citing a lack of sufficient evidence.

The application was lodged by Affirmative Repositioning movement leader Job Amupanda in 2021.

According to Amupanda, he was travelling from his village of Omaalala to Windhoek when officials at the Oshivelo checkpoint searched his vehicle, found meat and destroyed it. The meat, he argued, was bought at an open market in Omuthiya and was for personal consumption.

He testified that officials at the checkpoint searched his vehicle without permission.

“Mr Amupanda did not place a single shred of evidence before this court as to how the search to which he consented of his vehicle at the Oshivelo checkpoint violated, disrespected or is inconsistent with his intrinsic worth. I thus find that Mr Amupanda has failed to place sufficient evidence before court which holds the possibility of a finding that the Veterinary Cordon Fence violated article 8 (1),” Judge Ueitele found.

The hearing commenced in January 2025, with Amupanda placing his case before court. He was the sole witness. The defendants – including the agriculture minister, the attorney general, the Livestock and Livestock Products Board of Namibia, and the Namibian Agricultural Union – later filed an absolution from the instance, saying Amupanda’s case was weak.

Amupanda, represented by advocate Mbushandje Ntinda on the instructions of Kadhila Amoomo, insisted that the redline is not sanctioned by any law and is a colonial structure that unfairly restricts the movement of people from the north to the south of Namibia.

“I therefore find that Mr Amupanda’s testimony that people from the south are treated differently from people from the north to be poor, vacillating and of so romancing a character that I cannot place reliance on it. Mr Amupanda has not placed a single piece of evidence before court to demonstrate how irrational and arbitrary the government acts when it restricts the conveying of animal products from one zone to another zone,” Judge Ueitele found.