NEW ACTING JUDGES GIVE A TOUCH OF GENDER BALANCE TO HIGH COURT
By Werner Menges

February 10, 2004 – (The Namibian – Windhoek) Namibia's almost entirely male High Court judiciary has received a touch of greater gender balance with the latest appointments of Acting Judges.

The Office of Acting Chief Justice Johan Strydom, who also chairs the Judicial Service Commission which has to recommend the appointment of judges to the President, announced last week that three Acting Judges have been appointed to the High Court.

Kato van Niekerk, a member of the Society of Advocates of Namibia, is one of the new Acting Judges.

She is also a former Deputy Prosecutor General of Namibia.

With her appointment there are now - for the first time since Independence - three women serving on the High Court bench.

Van Niekerk's appointment as an Acting Judge runs from the start of February to April 30.
She joins another female Acting Judge, Dinnah Usiku, on the bench.

Long-serving Judge Mavis Gibson is the only other woman currently in the ranks of the High Court judiciary, which counts only one woman among its seven permanent members.

Acting Judge Usiku, a Regional Court Magistrate based in Windhoek, took up a seat on the High Court bench with effect from January 16.

Her term also runs to April 30.

The Acting Chief Justice's office further announced that Petrus Damaseb, a partner in the Windhoek law firm Conradie & Damaseb, has been appointed as an Acting Judge from February 1 to April 30.

Damaseb, who is also President of the Namibia Football Association (NFA), served as an Acting High Court Judge last year.

A veteran of the High Court bench, Acting Judge Simpson Mtambanengwe, who is acting as Namibia's Ombudsman as well, has also been reappointed as an Acting Judge, it was announced.

His term has been extended for the period from February 1 to the end of December.

Rounding out the ranks of the serving Acting Judges in the High Court at present is Acting Judge John Manyarara, himself a veteran of the bench who has previously served in the High Court and Supreme Court of Zimbabwe.

The extension of his term from the start of February to July 31 was announced with the appointment of Acting Judge Usiku last month.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200402100339.html