COPS ORDER LAWYER OUT OF JUDGE QINISILE’S CHAMBERS

MBABANE – Senior lawyer Zweli Jele was on Tuesday ordered out of the chambers of Judge Qinisile Mabuza by the police.

The police officers are said to have ordered Jele out of the judge’s chambers after they were instructed to do so by the court’s authorities.
The law enforcers are reported to have taken Jele to the authorities where he was eventually reprimanded before he left.

Efforts to get comments from the senior legal eagle proved futile as he was reported to be in South Africa.
The Registrar of the High Court, Fikile Nhlabatsi, yesterday issued a statement where she reminded lawyers and members of the public that it was inappropriate for anyone to have a meeting with a judge in the absence of his/her counterparts as well as the registrar.

suspicion

“It is not done anywhere in the world. This is to protect the integrity of the judicial system against suspicion of collusion between a judge and a lawyer or litigant as the case may be,” Nhlabatsi stated.

The registrar did not, however, single out Jele’s issue but she made reference to the case of Lobamba Lomdzala Member of Parliament Marwick Khumalo, where a lawyer was reported to have personally taken a file to a judge.

Nhlabatsi also dismissed the article that was published by the Swazi Observer, where it was reported that tempers flared at the High Court when a record was mysteriously removed from the duty Judge, Mabuza, and enrolled before Judge Mpendulo Simelane.

“This statement was blatantly incorrect. The case had always been enrolled before Judge Simelane not the duty judge.

“It was wrongly brought to the latter by the lawyer in question without consultation with the Registrar of the High Court,” reads part of the statement.

She said in terms of Rule 55 of the High Court, cases were enrolled before judges by the registrar of the High Court after consultation with the chief justice.

“It is simply forum-shopping for lawyers to usurp this power and give cases to their preferred judges for reasons best known to themselves,” said Nhlabatsi.

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