Many natural or juristic persons found themselves in a predicament when aggrieved by the conduct of the functionaries or institutions that infringe on their right to just administrative action.

Such administrative conduct usually unravels in a form of a decision of public administrators.

Think about a decision of a public body that affects a tender bidder for public works, an applicant for employment that got disqualified, a pupil or learner at a public school that refused an admission or a university student’s application for a study grant refused by NSFAF, a civil servant employee that got suspended from work without valid reasons, a worker that got transferred to another workplace without good cause etc. 

Our Constitution under Article 18 imposes a duty on all administrative bodies and administrative officials exercising public power to act fairly and reasonably and to comply with the requirements imposed upon such bodies and officials by common law and any relevant legislation. 

Furthermore, administrative bodies and officials must follow fair procedures and should give written reasons when their actions adversely affect the rights of any person.

Most of us remember the mantra and/or admonition from our 3rd Namibian president, the late President Hage Geingob, may his soul continue to rest in peace, as he used to scold those administrative officials in public administrative bodies in that they should respond to requests or applications by members of the public as quickly as possible by answering yes or no to such requests or applications, that when they say NO to such requests or applications they should provide written reasons for such NO answer. 

That’s just administrative law.

In the absence of a legislation that promotes administrative justice, then those individuals affected by administrative action of public bodies or public officials would continue to suffer prejudice, and are left with no choice, but to embark on a long route involving civil litigation and/or lodging labour referrals to the office of the Labour Commissioner for relief, unfortunately, such process is very expensive to sustain and tedious. 

Those aggrieved persons in most cases end up losing energy and run out of finances to fight and enforce their rights to administrative justice as civil litigation and labour arbitration matters protracting for a longer period and in the process, it drains them whereby at the end they end up abandoning their civil or labour litigation for lack of energy and finances.

Technically justice is denied to those affected persons and injustice continues to prevail unabated whereas if there was legislation in place with clear remedies to affected persons such aggrieved persons would be able to enforce their rights to just administrative action with ease and cheaply as penalties for would be offenders could be spelled out in the legislation.

So, Namibia must consider to have a legislation that aimed to control administrative action that are not fair and just and when they are not in line with the prescriptions of the law such action should be able to be corrected and/or set aside under such legislation.

A clear and identifiable remedy should be spelt out to protect individuals who happened to be prejudiced by administrative action of such public bodies and officials so that they can lodge their complaints against such impugned administrative action cheaply and expeditiously.

This call came at a time when the Ministry of Justice and Labour Relations invited written submissions on legislation reforms and proposals for new laws or amendments to existing ones.

This is apparent so, as the Ministry says it support the current President her Excellency Madam Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s call on the citizens to participate in legislative reform. In my own right, I, therefore, made this submission that the relevant authority should consider introducing a legislation titled Promotion of Administrative Justice Act which its purpose should be to give effect to the right to administrative action that is lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair and to the right to written reasons for administrative action as contemplated under Article 18 of the Namibian Constitution.

Such a bill should be tabled in the National Assembly in order to assist affected persons that found in subservient positions by administrative bodies and officials who happened to abuse their executive power by administrative action towards persons in subservient positions.   

Lucas Tshuuya is a legal practitioner from Onaanda in the Uukwambi district. Follow him at tshuuya@iway.na