CHIEF JUSTICE MARRIES HIS BODYGUARD

MBABANE – Wife number five. Last weekend was a special one for Chief Justice Bheki Maphalala and one of his bodyguards, Innocentia Tsabedze, popularly known to her friends and colleagues as ‘Mdee’.
The CJ has both male and female bodyguards who are all members of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS).

The head of the Judiciary decided to make things official by traditionally marrying Tsabedze during a ceremony held last week Sunday at the CJ’s homestead situated at Lawuba in the Shiselweni Region.

Maphalala homesteads

Confirming the ceremony was two of the chief justice’s close relatives, who were found in one of the Maphalala homesteads.
The two said they were present when Tsabedze went through the kuteka ceremony that made her the CJ’s wife.
“I am related to the judge as we share the same grandfather. I was there when the ceremony took place and it was this past Sunday,” said a relative. They also stated that Tsabedze was the CJ’s fifth wife and listed the other wives, in no particular order, as LaDube, LaNkhosi, LaMabilisa and LaNdlovu.

“The latest one is the fifth wife and she is LaTsabedze, who is a police officer,” added the other relative. They stated that their grandfather was a charmer who didn’t fear talking to the opposite sex hence he was a polygamous man with 11 wives. One of the relatives punned that the CJ most likely took after their grandfather.
Polygamy is legal in Eswatini and is widely practised by some men. Efforts were made to get comment from both the CJ and his new wife but they did not respond to questions sent to them through text and WhatsApp. At one point, the officer answered her mobile phone when called but as soon as the reporter introduced himself, she terminated the conversation.

Subsequent phone calls were not answered and the same applied to the CJ. But National Commissioner of Police William Tsintsibala Dlamini wished the newlyweds a prosperous future and stated that he had not been aware of the love relationship.
He said as such it would be difficult for him to comment because the horse has already bolted from the stable (ingoto seyengce indlela) since the chief justice has already established a family with the officer.
The police boss had been asked on what police protocols and ethics say about love relationships between officers and the principals to whom they have been assigned to provide security.

 “It would have been better if it was still at a love relationship stage but these are now married, which makes it difficult to comment. If only we got to know about it when it was just a love relationship, but now the only thing we can do is to have consultations in terms of deployment, which we cannot disclose to the media for security reasons.
“The matter is now difficult to deal with because it might seem as though I am on a collision course with the chief justice. We respect the office of the chief justice and we cannot hang his linen publicly,” Dlamini said.

prosperous future

He continued: “All we can do is to wish them a prosperous future in their marriage because it is now difficult to find a woman of integrity worthy of being made a wife and also for a woman to find a man of high integrity to become her husband. I can assure them that as an organisation we will support them where possible. We won’t point fault in their marriage. We accept their marriage.”
Dlamini said generally, security protocols dictate that a principal to whom an officer has been assigned remains a principal.

He said if there is anything, they always have to observe whether what’s happening is still in the interest of the principal’s security.
“This determines whether the assigned officer continues to be deployed to the principal and also whether protocols are still being adhered to. This is done to show respect to the principal because it might happen that the officer’s workmates are no longer comfortable under the situation. If the protocols no longer permit, we then have to change gear,” he said.

The NATCOM said even in this instance, and with due respect to the chief justice, they will consult and reach a consensus with him on what needed to be done because there is now a family member within his security detail.
He said once this happens, it is no longer a usual situation, which is why there is need for consultation, under respectful conditions as stated, ‘because we respect that this is a woman who wanted marriage and a man who wanted a wife’.
“We respect this. There is nothing that was stopping them from reaching an agreement regarding their private lives. We now have to see to it that security protocols are followed lest we be blamed by the world as an organisation. Our responsibility is the security of the principal,” Dlamini added.

According to the Bangalore Principles, which is an international set of core values designed to provide guidance to judges and to offer the Judiciary a framework for regulating judicial conduct, a judge should not violate universally accepted community standards or engage in activities that clearly bring disrepute to the courts or the legal system.
“In attempting to strike the right balance, the judge must consider whether—in the eyes of a reasonable, fair-minded and informed member of the community—the proposed conduct is likely to call into question his or her integrity, or to diminish respect for him or her as a judge. If that is the case, such conduct should be avoided,” reads section 104 of the principles.

cultural diversity

In Section 105 they accept that in view of cultural diversity and the constant evolution of moral values, the standards applying to a judge’s private life cannot be laid down too strictly. However, it states that this principle should not be interpreted so broadly as to censure or penalise a judge for engaging in a non-conformist lifestyle or for privately pursuing interests or activities that might be offensive to segments of the community.

 In Section 106, under ‘An alternate test’, the principles say it has been suggested that the proper question is not whether an act is moral or immoral according to some religious or ethical beliefs, or whether it is acceptable or unacceptable by community standards (which could lead to the arbitrary and capricious imposition of a narrow understanding of morality), but how the act reflects upon the central components of the judge’s ability to do the job for which he or she has been empowered (fairness, independence and respect for the public) and on the public’s perception of his or her fitness to do the job.

Six factors have been listed for consideration when making judgments on such a matter and these are: the public or private nature of the act and specifically whether it is contrary to a law that is actually enforced; the extent to which the conduct is protected as an individual right; the degree of discretion and prudence exercised by the judge; whether the conduct was either harmful to those most closely involved or reasonably offensive to others. The degree of respect or lack of respect for the public or individual members of the public that the conduct demonstrates; and the degree to which the conduct is indicative of bias, prejudice or improper influence.

public expectations

“It has been argued that the use of these and similar factors would assist in striking a balance between public expectations and the judge’s rights,” states the principles.
It is the first time in Eswatini that a State security officer falls in love with and eventually marries the principal, especially one who is head of one of the three arms of government.

An incident that could be likened to this is that of the King of Thailand who, last year, married the deputy head of his personal security detail, and gave her the title of queen. King Maha Vajiralongkorn, aged 67, became the constitutional monarch after the death of his father in 2016 and he has been married and divorced three times before and has seven children.  

Meanwhile, Maphalala is the first liSwati to hold the position of chief justice, having been appointed to the position by His Majesty King Mswati III on the recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission.
He was appointed after the sacking of Lesotho-born Michael Ramodibedi who famously christened himself ‘makhulu baas’.
 Ramodibedi, now late, was sacked after a much-publicised impeachment process that dominated local and international news.

He was fired for being at the centre of a conspiracy to fix cases by predetermining judgments and for also defrauding the Eswatini Revenue Authority.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: