Parliament fails people in passing CoA Bill

Parliament has passed the Court of Appeal (Amendment) Bill, 2017 (Bill No. 3 of 2017). Following a judgement by Justice Abednego Tafa that Parliament had abdicated its mandate of prescribing the number of justices of the Court of Appeal (CoA) by giving up the power to the President in terms of Section 4 of the Act.

The court held that it is Parliament which should prescribe the number of CoA judges. It further held that judges of Appeal are only appointable on a three year no-renewable contracts. This therefore meant that almost all cited judges in the case were unconstitutionally appointed and that their appointment was null and void. The court gave a structural interdict; six months period within which Parliament should rectify the anomaly. The Justice, Defence and Security minister tabled a Bill before parliament on a certificate of urgency and asked parliament to amend the CoA Act.

The minister asked Parliament to prescribe the number to twelve judges of Appeal. He also wanted to raise the retirement age of judges of CoA from 70 to 80 years. The minister sought to validate previous appointments judges, previous proceedings and judgements of the CoA. Two General Assembly meetings were held in which the minister sought to be advised and seek some sort of a consensus from MPs. However, there were heated debates in the two assemblies with MPs who are lawyers generally having misgivings with particularly clause 3 of the Bill dealing with raising retirement age to 80.

Editor's Comment
Congratulations Anicia Gaothuse!

The contest had 10 beautiful young girls as finalists and unfortunately only one could wear the crown.The judges picked Anicia Gaothuse. To all those who feel their contestant should have won ahead of Anicia for whatever reason, hardly; the judges found Anicia to be the best among the best, so desist from disrespecting our newly crowned queen on social media or anywhere else, for that matter! Each of the 10 beautiful young women had supporters...

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