Swazi lawyers call for chief justice to go

Swazi lawyers have called for the suspension of the mountain kingdom's chief justice, after he charged a High Court judge with insulting Africa's last absolute monarch, King Mswati III. "We want the authorities to realise that the chief justice is mad and we don't want him," Mandla Mkwanazi of Swaziland's Lawyers for Human Rights told AFP after a meeting late Wednesday. Lawyers say the judiciary is under attack after the powerful Chief Justice Michael Ramodibedi charged Judge Thomas Masuku with 12 misdemeanour offences. They included having insulted Mswati by calling him "forked-tongued" in a 2010 ruling. One of the few judges willing to challenge the king, Masuku has also been charged for a romantic affair with a fellow judge and for associating with pro-regime change supporters. President of the Law Society of Swaziland, Titus Mlangeni said a six-member panel would look at the breakdown in the administration of justice, the Times of Swaziland reported Thursday. "Among things to do, the sub-committee has been mandated to call upon the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to without further delay suspend the chief justice, pending determination of complaints to be lodged against him," Mlangeni said. Mswati is Africa's last absolute monarch, ranked among the world's wealthiest royals by Forbes magazine, but he rules over an impoverished nation that has the planet's highest incidence of HIV.