A case management hearing is to be held in the Windhoek High Court on 28 August 2025 to determine how a challenge by Ganja Users of Namibia (GUN) to have cannabis decriminalised on constitutional grounds is to proceed.
This after the court determined on 18 August that the plaintiffs and the defendants had to work together and submit a joint report by 25 August 2025 outlining how the two parties intend to deal with a special plea the defendants raised in which they argued that the case was not ripe for the court to decide and therefore should not proceed.
That followed a new judgement from the country’s Supreme Court that came to the attention of the three judges who heard the original arguments by the parties on 2 July 2025. The new judgement clarifies a rule that stipulates that the court needs to hear evidence, not just legal arguments, when a court considers a special plea.
As a consequence, only a single judge better suited to hear and consider the evidence will now consult with the lawyers of the parties on how the case should move forward as hearing evidence is a lengthy process that makes it impractical for a panel of three judges to handle together.
The defendants have proposed to bring their five expert witnesses by 8 September, with the plaintiffs also set to do the same. Five organs of the Namibian government are listed as the defendants: the prosecutor-general, the inspector-general of the police, the ministers of health and justice and the government itself while GUN President Brian Jaftha and Secretary General Borro Ndungula are cited as the plaintiffs.
On 7 August 2025, Government Attorney Donagene Garises filed a Joint Status Report drawing the parties’ attention to a matter before the country’s Supreme Court in which the concept of ripeness is set for deliberation on 8 September 2025.
In response, Ndungula stated that the government’s last-minute attempt to call expert witnesses before a judge to give evidence about the viability of the concept of ripeness was an indication of its realisation that the ripeness concept it intended to use to throw out the case early was a much more complex notion that went beyond the academic.
The government had argued that the GUN court challenge was premature as the Law Reform and Development Commission (LRDC) was still adjudicating cannabis’ status in Namibia, where all forms of cannabis use are prohibited in terms of the Abuse of Dependence-Producing Substances and Rehabilitation Centres Act 41 of 1971, imposed during the country’s period as a colony of South Africa.
Critics have seen this as an attempt by the government to delegate GUN’s constitutional rights court challenge away to civil society through the LRDC, hence GUN has called out the government for attempting to circumvent legitimate constitutional and human rights concerns and argued the courts should be the final arbiter on decriminilisation. The LRDC is now enlisted as sixth defendant in the case, alongside the government.
GUN and pro-cannabis activists such as Reon Gunther Helmut Bezuidenhout have charged that apartheid-era laws such as the 1971 legislation that governs cannabis use have no place in an independent Namibia. Bezuidenhout has drafted and shared with government a cannabis law reform policy proposal that outlines a phased approach and seeks to balance the imperatives of a criminal justice system, economic opportunity and public health.
“Legal frameworks reduce harms. Countries that regulate cannabis focus on quality control, safety, age limits and medical access – this lowers contamination risks and channels spending away from illegal markets,” argues Bezuidenhout.
Namibia is the only country in its part of southern Africa still to decriminalise cannabis use on medicinal or industrial grounds, with Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe having adopted friendly legislation. Botswana is soon set to join this group and has already partially legalised.
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