POLITICS-SWAZILAND: Lawyers Lead Democracy Fight

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Aug 14 2002 (IPS) - The lawyers of this small African kingdom, the last country south of the Sahara to be ruled by a hereditary monarch, have emerged this month as the leading activists in the pro-democracy fight.

“Lawyers have replaced labour leaders at the forefront of the political reform battle,” says attorney Kilson Shongwe, who is vice president of the banned political party, People’s United Democratic Movement.

King Mswati III has let stand the 1973 decree of his father, the long-reigning King Sobhuza, that outlaws political opposition groups that might challenge royal rule. He announced that as early as October a new national constitution presently being drafted by his brother, Prince David Dlamini, will make the political party ban permanent.

In response to the so-called palace constitution, Swaziland’s lawyers have stepped forward as a potent voice of dissent.

“Compared to the lawyers, the banned political parties seem like rag-tag, disorganised, and ineffectual rabble rousers. The unions are fighting various government laws and decrees that threaten their survival, so their effectiveness is not what it used to be,” political writer Jason Ndwandwe told IPS.

Last month, activist attorneys belonging to Lawyers for Human Rights (Swaziland) called a daring conference at the nation’s top hotel to address the need for a new constitution. In theory, the conference was seditious, because it suggested a rejection of King Mswati’s new constitution that will continue his rule as a sovereign who controls the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government.

“Six years work has gone into the palace constitution, and King Mswati says the matter will soon be at an end. The prime minister said the time for debating constitutional issues is past. Now, here come the lawyers with their own contrary vision,” says Ndwandwe.

Sedition is a serious charge in Swaziland. Kilson Shongwe’s superior at the People’s United Democratic Movement, Mario Masuku, has been on trial since February on two counts of allegedly uttering seditious statements at public rallies. Masuku’s defence is that he was not attacking King Mswati personally, or advocating violence, but is seeking political reform that will fundamentally change the king’s status in the country.

Masuku’s trial proceeds this week after the High Court dismissed one charge of sedition, where it was alleged the political activist advocated violence at a labour union meeting in the commercial town Manzini. The court let stand a count accusing Masuku of uttering similar threats at an illegal street meeting in the capital Mbabane.

Last month’s conference on constitutional reform also concluded with a call for the monarch’s status to fundamentally change. In attendance were church groups and members of the Swaziland Democratic Alliance, which functions as a federation of political reform groups including labour unions, human rights organisations and women’s groups.

“It is appropriate that the lawyers are leading the way on the constitutional front, because it is lawyers who write and interpret laws,” says an Mbabane attorney who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity. ” Lawyers have been frustrated that for six years they have been excluded from the national constitutional process. They have a lot to contribute.” It became clear this week why lawyers have thus far contributed little to the ongoing constitutional process, begun by King Mswati in 1996 with an original deadline to have a draft constitution by 1998.

Lawyers for Human Rights announced its blueprint for the type of constitution envisioned by the reformist delegates at last month’s constitutional conference. The newly released document shows why another of King Mswati’s brothers, Prince Mangaliso Dlamini, who headed the first constitutional commission, marginalised the input of political progressives in the process, as reported by Kilson Shongwe, one original constitutional commission member.

The lawyers’ constitutional blueprint calls for a democratically elected government that would retain the king as a ceremonial head of state, much like Britain’s Queen Elizabeth. The king would approve cabinet appointments presented by a prime minister who would no longer be a palace appointee as is currently the case, but would lead a political party popularly elected to form a government.

The king’s powers over government policy in his current control of the all three branches of government would devolve back into the executive, legislative and judicial branches that would be governed by a constitution and answerable to an electorate.

The blueprint is a polar opposite of the constitution recommended by Prince Mangaliso Dlamini, which will permanently ban political parties and strengthen traditional structures like the chieftaincy system. Presently, four out of five Swazis live as peasant farmers on communal Swazi Nation Land under the authority of palace-appointed chiefs. The Lawyers for Human Rights constitutional blueprint retains chiefs as cultural symbols and as community leaders, but ends their power over their subjects.

On Tuesday, Prince David Dlamini, who is drafting the palace- authorised constitution, said he is unable to entertain the Lawyers for Human Rights constitutional proposals. “It is too late for such submissions,” he told the local press.

Instead, he urged the lawyers to present their plan to King Mswati for his consideration after the constitution has been promulgated this October.

In response, Musa Dlamini, president of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers, which is affiliated with the Swaziland Democratic Alliance, told IPS, “The constitution the palace wants and a truly democratic constitution that empowers the people are two completely different things, apples and oranges. They cannot be reconciled.” Other political observers are not so sure that a gulf separating royalists and democrats cannot be bridged. King Mswati is under scrutiny by trade allies in the developed world, whose purchases of Swazi exports keep the kingdom’s economy growing, and donor organisations that insist pro-democracy reforms are a prerequisite to ending the chronic food shortages and health crises like AIDS that plague the country.

The palace has invited Women in Law for Southern Africa’s Swaziland branch, the Swaziland Law Society, and Lawyers for Human Rights to provide technical assistance in the final drafting of a national constitution. But it is likely the lawyers will be pushing for content input, as well.