EDITORIAL: One step forward, two steps back

Every time Namibia consolidates her credentials as a leading press freedom haven, something pops up to disrupt the trajectory. The judiciary stabbed the media in the back with a sharp new regime of how court proceedings may be covered. This, at no instigation.

They say superficial change is not movement. And indeed, the more things supposedly change for the better in the Namibian media fraternity, the more they stay the same. One would think the passing of the access to information law, for example, would parachute us a few more miles ahead of the curve, but then things like these restrictions pop up out of nowhere.

Just this week, the judiciary was hailed for announcing that going forward, all appointments of High Court judges would be conducted through public interviews. Transparently, we thought. Openness, we hoped. Then someone, a party pooper in that arm of government, pulled the plug to spoil the celebration for everyone. They put sand in the pot the media – and by extension the nation – was feasting from. The ‘lords and peasants’ attitude of the judiciary, where the bigwigs of Fishrot are being coddled while common suspects are left in the glare of media cameras, is suspect. These unprovoked restrictions are robbing the nation of full insight into the biggest corruption scandal of our republican existence. Unwarranted, unsolicited and unprovoked. And dubious!