A pretrial conference was scheduled to take place on Thursday, 11 November 2025 on the Ganja Users of Namibia bid to challenge the constitutionality of anti-cannabis legislation.
Ahead of the meeting the Office of the Government Attorney issued a Proposed Pre-trial Report which says it should be up to the Minister of Health to change laws relating to cannabis as GUN’s special plea goes beyond the jurisdiction of the courts as it is a policy matter.
The report summarises the facts and legal issues in GUN’s attempt to have cannabis use and possession decriminalised for medicinal purposes as a constitutional imperative. It essentially contains the points of law Presiding Judge J. Claasen will have to consider before reaching her decision.
The report states that the decision whether cannabis should be decriminalised is not a matter of judicial adjudication but of policy. It identifies the legislature and the Minister of Health and Social Services as the most appropriate entities to decide on the matter, citing the numerous health and societal ramifications at stake should decriminalisation be green-lighted. It notes that “there is a rational basis to classify cannabis to be a dependency producing drug” and that “there is a legitimate government purpose to regulate dispensing of medicine”.
While the report’s contents may appear to vindicate government’s position that the final say on decriminalisation should rest with Namibian society, it most notably contends that GUN is constitutionally well within its rights to pursue relief through the courts to influence government policy. However, it points out that cannabis being a medicinal drug that requires scheduling, “the Minister of Health and Social Services is the one that has authority to change or amend the schedules of medicines” in accordance with the 2003 Medicines Act, as chief custodian of government health policy.
GUN has faulted the Abuse of Dependence-Producing Substances and Rehabilitation Centres Act 41 of 1971 (RSA), also known as “the Impugned Act” and the Medicines and Related Substances Act 101 of 1965 (“the Medicines Act”) as colonial-era relics prejudicial to the rights enshrined in Namibia’s post-independence constitution and called for their scrapping. However, the report notes that the Medicines Act of 1965 is obsolete after being overridden by the 2003 Medicines Act.
Of significance and something from which GUN will likely take comfort is the report’s pronouncement that “it is factually correct that the prohibition of cannabis cannot be scientifically, morally or rationally justified”. The report however simultaneously avers that the rights of citizens and entities opposed to the plaintiffs’ views are also legitimate and deserve factoring into any decision that may be taken.
GUN President Brian Jaftha and Secretary General Borro Ndungula are the plaintiffs in the case with five government entities as the defendants, all coordinated by 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.
The case got off to a dramatic start in July when the government tried to force an early dismissal by bringing up the special plea in arguing that the cannabis matter was a civil matter being handled 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 have of late been encouraged a change in policy could be imminent after a witness statement by the Inspector-General of the Police on 23 October revealed that a bill had been developed at the executive level whose purpose was to allow cannabis use under certain circumstances. The pre-trial conference report states that there are two such bills currently in circulation among members of the executive.
Namibia is the only country in its part of southern Africa to yet decriminalise cannabis use on medicinal or industrial grounds, with Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe having adopted friendly legislation.
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