APA-Mbabane (Eswatini) Eswatini’s Chief Justice Bheki Maphalala has been elected chairperson of the Southern and Eastern Chief Justices Forum at a conference held in Tanzania this week, the Eswatini government announced on Thursday.
Maphalala would over the coming year steer regional programmes to ensure an independent and integrated judiciary which promotes the rule of law, human rights, democracy and good governance in Eastern and Southern Africa.
The Eastern and Southern African Chief Justices Forum provides a formal platform, structure and framework through which chief justices from the region collectively reflect on issues of justice delivery and adopt action plans to address those issues in a systematic and sustained way.
The forum was established in 2003 to, among other things, uphold the rule of law, democracy and independence of the courts and to promote contact as well as cooperation among the courts in the regions of its operation.
With a secretariat based in the Zambian capital Lusaka, the forum is made up of chief justices from Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The 2023 conference was held under the theme, “The Role of National Judiciaries in Dispute Resolution under The African Continental Free Trade Area: Application of Modern Technologies for High Efficiency in Justice Dispensation.”
JN/APA