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KING ORDERS PAY CUT FOR JUDGES

18/11/2018 07:57:00 BY WELCOME DLAMINI

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MBABANE – The kingdom’s ongoing financial crisis will be felt by all three arms of government.
The judiciary is the latest arm to be included in the Phil Mnisi-led Royal Commission that had initially been tasked with reviewing the salaries of the country’s politicians – the legislature (MPs and Senators) and the executive (Cabinet ministers).

This publication has learnt that the Commission had completed their initial task and went to His Majesty King Mswati III to present their report only for the Head of State to broaden their assignment.

The Times SUNDAY understands that His Majesty ordered Mnisi and his team to also review the salaries of the Judiciary. It is then therefore that Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg issued an extraordinary government gazette in the form of Legal Notice No. 2013 of 2018.

This Legal Notice is to be read with Legal Notice No, 167 of 2018, which announced the appointment of the Commission and its terms of reference.
The latest notice amends the previous one by broadening the commission’s scope of work to include reviewing the salaries for “Judges of the superior court of judicature and Judges of the Industrial Court”.

Mnisi, the Commission’s Chairman, when asked about the mandate given to them by His Majesty to also review the salaries for the judiciary, said: “The scope has been increased per the gazette issued by the minister of Finance”.

The chairman was also asked whether cutting the salaries for the judiciary would not be in violation of Section 141 (6) of the Constitution which states: “The salary, allowances, privileges and rights in respect of leave of absence, gratuity, pension and other conditions of service of a judge of a superior court or any judicial officer or other person exercising judicial power, shall not be varied to the disadvantage of that Judge or judicial officer or other person.”

Currently, the chief justice is paid a basic monthly salary of E73 051, an inducement allowance of E5 524 and entertainment allowances of E2 767
Supreme Court judges are paid a basic salary of E65 945 while High Court Judges earn a basic salary of E60 346 a month.

Mnisi indicated that they would observe all laws as they went about reviewing the judges’ salaries.
“The process in ongoing and the commission is hard at work and will adhere to the laws of the country when and if called upon to engage in the consultations,” he said.