The Namibian government appears to be playing for time ahead of a High Court hearing next week challenging cannabis prohibition. State lawyers are arguing that cannabis policy is not a matter for the courts to decide and that the legislature is in the process of reviewing cannabis laws anyway.
Ganja Users of Namibia's (GUN's) Windhoek High Court case has been postponed until 5 May 2026 for a hearing on the special plea. The court has set a 5-8 May court slot for a hearing of the special plea the defendants brought in July last year.
GUN President Brian Jaftha and Secretary General Borro Ndungula are the plaintiffs with five government entities as the defendants, under the Office of the Government Attorney: the Prosecutor-General, the Inspector-General of the Namibian Police (Nampol), the ministers of health and justice and the government itself.
In calling for decriminalisation, the GUN leaders are seeking to overturn the colonial-era ban on all forms of cannabis use and possession on constitutional grounds.
In the latest development, the court ordered that the proposed pre-trial report released by the Office of the Government Attorney on 23 January and heard by the court and adopted by the parties on 18 February be made an order of court. The report summarised the involved main issues of fact and legal issues.
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