Cannabiz Africa
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.
The main issues of fact are that it is in the public interest for Namibia to decriminalise cannabis as argued by the plaintiffs. However, the defendants argue the matter is for the legislature and not the courts due to far-reaching policy implications were cannabis to be decriminalised. They havealso countered current drug legislation is under review by Cabinet, particularly that relating to cannabis. Two bills are reportedly under consideration by the executive, thus making the GUN case premature, according to the defendants.
The main legal issues under consideration are that although the courts are competent to discuss cannabis policy, the matter principally remains an executive and legislature prerogative under the Namibian constitution. It is also stated that the government’s existing policy positions as contained in the 2003 Medicines Act allow persons that medically qualify to use cannabis for medicinal purposes in line with a scheme outlines in the Act. This pre-empts any calls for a hearing of the case on an urgent basis, the court has heard.
This is because the case raises political questions that require legislative and far-reaching policy changes, fit to be contested not in the courts but in the political arena.
The government tried to force an early dismissal of the case when the trial got underway in July 2025, arguing that cannabis was a civil and not legal matter, which was being considered by the country’s Law Reform and Development Commission (LRDC), and therefore, unripe for a court hearing. The LRDC later emerged as the sixth defendant.
Pro-cannabis campaigners now think it’s a matter of time before their plea is vindicated. This followed testimony that the government had already developed two different pieces of legislation pertaining to cannabis, reportedly in circulation among the executive.
Namibia is the only country in its corner of southern Africa to yet decriminalise cannabis on medicinal or industrial grounds, with Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe having adopted some form of legislation.