Court orders prison probe
18 July 2011
Namibian
Werner Menges
A Handwritten case that a group of inmates of Windhoek Central Prison have filed with the High Court in Windhoek is set to spark a judicial investigation into conditions at Namibia’s largest penal institution.
The application which prison inmates Simon Petrus !Ganeb, Andreas Haingura and Joshua Hecht have filed against the Minister of Safety and Security, the head of Windhoek Central Prison and the nurse in charge of the clinic at the prison is replete with grammatical errors, but the thrust of what the three men are trying to tell the court is clear. That is that they are not receiving food that has been prescribed for them due to health problems, and that they want the prison authorities to be ordered to provide them with the diet that they claim they need.
Further allegations are also being made in the men’s court application, with Ganeb claiming that he had been poisoned in March this year, but that an investigation into this was being covered up.
The men’s case was in court before Acting Judge Raymond Heathcote on Friday.
Acting Judge Heathcote told them he has decided to make use of a section of the High Court Act which allows the court to appoint a referee to investigate a matter and to compile a special dossier to be provided to the court.
He has decided to ask the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) to act as the referee in this matter, Acting Judge Heathcote said.
In terms of the Supreme Court Act, which also applies to the appointment of a referee under the High Court Act, such a referee will have the power to acquire the assistance or advice of the Attorney General or Ombudsman or any person employed in the public service in order to carry out his or her functions.
LAC Director Toni Hancox was also in court on Friday.
Acting Judge Heathcote asked her to return to court on Wednesday in order to indicate to him what powers she would need to carry out the task that he has assigned to the LAC.
In the application that they filed with the court, !Ganeb, Haingura and Hecht are asking the court to order the prison authorities to provide them with the full diet prescribed for them by dieticians. They also want the court to order the prison authorities to permit them to buy some of the food which cannot be supplied by the prison, and to allow their families to provide this food to them on a weekly basis.
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