The Namibian Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has upheld a decision which was made by the Windhoek Magistrate Court where two senior counsels, including former president Jacob Zuma’s former lawyer, for violating the country’s immigration laws five years ago.
Advocate Mike Hellens and advocate Dawie Joubert were convicted for entering the country to represent high profile clients in court with visitor’s permits, instead of the required worker’s permits.
Hellens once represented former President Jacob Zuma in the Arms Deal matter around 2018, while he also represented the Gupta brothers in the Vrede Dairy Project matter, and also represented Zuma’s son, Duduzane, during his culpable homicide trial. He was acquitted in that case.
In Namibia, Hellens and Joubert were representing six people, including two former Namibia ministers, Bernard Esau and Sack Shanghala, who are facing charges relating to their alleged involvement in a fishing quota kickback scandal.
The Windhoek Magistrate fined them N$ 10 000 (R10 000) or a prison term of 18 months.
They paid the fine the following day and were released after pleading guilty to conducting legal work without proper documentation and furnishing an immigration officer with misleading information.
They then appealed the magistrate’s decision at the Windhoek High Court and had their appeal dismissed September 2020. They approached the country’s SCA and their application was dismissed in December 2023.
When appealing the conviction, they claim they were forced to plead guilty and were under duress.
They also said that the instructing legal practitioner who briefed them to appear on behalf of his clients, never advised them that they required work permits or that it was a standard practice in Namibia for an advocate coming to Namibia from another jurisdiction to apply for a work permit.
During the appeal of their criminal convictions, they had simultaneously filed a civil case application in where they asked the High Court to review and set aside the convictions.
They won the civil case in June 2021 and the judge ruled that their convictions and sentences should be set aside.
However, Namibian Home Affairs Minister, Albert Kawana, took the matter to the SCA in an effort set aside the decision which was made in the civil case.
In the recent hearing, the three judges said Hellens and Joubert failed to prove that they were coerced to plead guilty and that such coercion constituted irregularity in the proceedings.
“There is nothing on record that suggest that their pleas had not been made voluntarily. In this regard their plea explanations demonstrate that the pleas had been made freely and voluntarily with full appreciation of their consequences.
“When one considers all the facts coupled with the fact that both respondents are senior counsel, one is driven to the inevitable conclusion that the respondents had pleaded guilty of their own volition and out of their free will,” said the judges.
IOL News