King revokes decree and introduces new law

Bowing to international pressure, Swaziland’s King Mswati III revoked a royal decree late on Tuesday night that had stripped the courts of their independence and muzzled the press, news reports said on Wednesday.

Reports said the monarch openly admitted he was acting in the face of a threat by the United States to withdraw preferential trade benefits enjoyed by Swaziland. The revocation of the decree was announced by Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini on the king’s behalf on the state radio station.

“I am now informing the nation that his majesty has accepted the concerns about the decree,” Dlamini said. “A new law in the light of the concerns and other considerations has been processed.” A new decree issued on Wednesday restates that bail may not be granted to serious offenders, and repeals the section of the constitution prohibiting such a practice. The decree also declares valid all actions by government ministers and officers carried out in their official capacities under previous laws, including the old decree. Such actions may also not be challenged in court solely on the grounds that they were carried out by government officials, the new decree states.

Reports quoted civil society activists as saying that while the concession was seen as significant, there was still no mention of ending the nation’s 28-year-old system of monarchist rule imposed by Mswati’s father, King Sobuza II. “Swaziland is a dictatorship,” said Jan Sithole, the secretary-general of the 83,000-member Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions. A study by the organisation Women and Law in Southern Africa concluded earlier this year that Swazis were subjected to a barrage of human rights violations, including torture, intimidation and detention without trial.