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...
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 an “Appropriation...
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...
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...
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 The current outdated law requires a guilty spouse and an innocent spouse, and necessitates a...
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 the...
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 to...
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 found...
Background In one of our previous ProBono columns we talked about Commission of Inquiry’s report on Claims of Ancestral Land Rights and Restitution. The Commission, along with making several recommendations to the government on ancestral land rights and restitution claims, drafted the Ancestral Land Rights and Restitution Bill (the “Bill”). In...
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...
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