30 Years of Gender Research and Advocacy

30 YEARS OF GENDER RESEARCH & ADVOCACY by Dianne Hubbard Having passed the retirement age for the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), I will be ending my 30-year stint as the coordinator of the Gender Research & Advocacy Project (GR&AP) at the end of February. This makes it a fitting time to look back...

Read more...

What did Parliament do in 2022

January is always a good time to reflect on the past year. What laws were passed by Parliament in 2022? Here is an overview. Parliament passed 16 statutes in 2022, with only three of these introducing new laws. The remainder were amendments or repeals of existing laws. APPROPRIATIONS Every year, parliament passes...

Read more...

Expungement of Criminal Records

Expungement of Criminal Records Should criminal convictions follow you forever? When applying for a job or a visa to work or study abroad, a person may have to submit a Certificate of Conduct (also known as a police clearance certificate) to show that they have no criminal history. This certificate is issued...

Read more...

Sex Offender Register needed?

A Sex Offender Register For Namibia? Right Idea, Wrong Solution In 2017, hundreds of people gathered outside a house in Katutura in reaction to reports that the occupants were abducting and dismembering children. According to news reports, police deployed 20 police vehicles and a helicopter, and ended up having to use...

Read more...

Divorce Bill Analysis

The Divorce Bill: What is good and what not? The latest draft of the Divorce Bill was recently circulated for public comment.  Much of the Bill is a very welcome change to Namibia’s antiquated fault-based divorce law. The current outdated law requires a guilty spouse and an innocent spouse, and necessitates a...

Read more...

Urban Land Reform

What is Namibia doing about Urban Land Reform?

Background For the best part of the first two decades after Namibia’s independence, the Namibian government has focused on commercial agricultural land reform. The Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act was enacted in 1995, five years after Namibia gained independence. Against the political rhetoric that...

Read more...

Probono on Admission of Guilt in Covid Times

An admission of guilt fine refers to the situation where a person who has been charged with a crime that is not too serious – such as a traffic violation or a violation of the Covid-19 emergency regulations – is given the option of paying a fine without having...

Read more...

Probono on the Ombudsman and Children in Detention

The Ombudsman has long crusaded for the rights of Namibian children in detention, carrying out several investigations and producing reports setting out concerns in this regard over the years. These efforts seem to have made some difference, but problems remain. An investigation last year by the Office of the Ombudsman...

Read more...

Probono on Parental Deception Hurts the Child

Recently, The Namibian ran an article about men being “deceived into fatherhood”. This article was disturbing, but it presented only one side of the coin. We should indeed be concerned about women who deceive men, but equally concerned about men who try to evade their duties as fathers – and...

Read more...