The State is trying to head off the Ganja Users of Namibia (GUN) court bid to challenge the constitutionality of the law prohibiting cannabis use by saying the legislation under question is being reviewed at an executive level.
This was revealed during court proceedings on 23 October 2025 by Lt-Gen Joseph Shikongo (pictured here) and senior police official Shapwa Elias Shapwa, who said that “a bill had already been developed at the executive level to allow cannabis use under certain circumstances.”
Lt-Gen Shikongo, testifying on behalf of the Nampol Inspector-General , said that that any court victory by GUN now would be prejudicial to the State as there was no regulatory framework in place to allow for the regulated use of cannabis. He also argued that the matter was the prerogative of the government and the legislature, not civil society.
Shapwa, a detective for Nampol, stated that his organisation and the Ministry of Home Affairs, Safety and Security were in the process of reviewing the Abuse of Dependence-Producing Substances and Rehabilitation Centres Act 41 of 1971 (RSA), also known as “the Impugned Act”. It is especially this piece of legislation that GUN has faulted for containing blanket prohibitionist provisions.
GUN has also slammed the Act as an antiquated relic of colonial-era rule under South Africa, inconsistent with independent and modern Namibia.
GUN is also seeking to have cannabis delisted from the Medicines and Related Substances Act 101 of 1965 (“the Medicines Act”). Opposing GUN’s bid is the Christian Coalition of Churches of Namibia and a number public health experts.
The Windhoek High Court has ordered parties to file a joint pre-trial report by no later than 3 December 2025 in a bid to force litigants to find common ground following the special 7 November 2025 plea brought by the defendants.
The five government defendants in the lawsuit, coordinated by the Office of the Government Attorney, are the Prosecutor-General, the Inspector-General of the Namibian Police (Nampol), the ministers of health and justice and the government itself; Ganja Users of Namibia (GUN) President Brian Jaftha and Secretary General Borro Ndungula are the plaintiffs.
The Windhoek High Court started hearing GUN’s lawsuit to force the government to decriminalise cannabis on constitutional grounds on 2 July 2025.
The government then tried to have the case dismissed early by filing a special plea arguing the GUN matter was unripe to be heard before a court of law as the cannabis debate was a civil society matter being adjudicated by the country’s Law Reform and Development Commission (LRDC). The LRDC is now the sixth defendant in the matter.
However, on 23 October 2025, the court heard that the Namibian government was reviewing contentious legislation that bans all forms of cannabis use and possession in the country and was inviting the plaintiffs to make contributions to the process.
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