BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – Government is calling upon its partners and the entire international community to respect Eswatini’s sovereignty and its laws.
This call was made today (Thursday, July 18, 2024) by Government Spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo. Nxumalo said this during an interview with the Voice of Africa (VOA) news channel. Nxumalo said this in response to organisations that criticise the sentencing of former Members of Parliament (MPs) Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube.
Nxumalo stated that the judiciary, when working on the case of the two former MPs, was being competent and was working independently. He further stated that Eswatini had a Constitution, which guaranteed rights to the former legislators to appeal, if they felt as if they were not tried in a fair manner. He said their next stop would be the Supreme Court, if they felt that the High Court was unfair in trying their case.
Asked what he could say to those that accused Government of using the courts to harass those with dissenting voices, Nxumalo said such an accusation was baseless because Eswatini Government operated in a modern and internationally accepted principle of the separation of powers. The Government mouthpiece said there was no way in which the Executive arm of Government could interfere with the Judiciary because these two worked independently of one another.
Nxumalo further expressed surprise on why these organisations would start criticising the sentencing because they also participated in the trial of the two former lawmakers. He said some of these organisations participated by observing the trial, while some even sponsored the lawyers of the former legislators.
Asked about the criticism directed at Govenrment in this case by the Amnesty International and the US Embassy in Eswatini, Nxumalo said they responded comprehensively to the criticisms by the US Embassy. He said as Govenrment, they were short of reminding the US Embassy about the sentencing that were meted by the American courts to the perpetrators of the January 6, 2024 rioting in Washington.
He said Eswatini Government did not criticise the American Government because the Eswatini administration believed that the independence of the American courts had satisfied themselves and believed that those suspects deserved to be sentenced the way they were sentenced.
Mabuza and Dube were on Monday this week (July 15, 2024) sentenced to prison sentences of 25 years and 18 years, respectively. They were accused of having caused the political unrest that took place in the country in 2021.
