Constitutional Rights in Namibia: A Comparative Analysis with International Human Rights, and: Swapo's Struggle for Namibia, 1960-1991: War by Other Means, and: Namibia's Post-Apartheid Regional Institutions: The Founding Year (review)

Nine years after independence, a new generation of Namibianists is beginning to present deeper and more concrete studies on Namibian political life which go beyond the liberation struggle equation. The three books under review here are good examples of the research that is beginning to surface based on new developments, opportunities, and research agendas. First, Gino Naldi compares the highly regarded Namibian Constitution and early Namibian court decisions regarding human rights and democracy in his Constitutional Rights in Namibia: A Comparative Analysis with International Human Rights. Second, Lauren Dobell utilizes SWAPO documents and postindependence interviews of key participants to measure the shifting political and developmental policies of the now-govern-ing party in Swapo's Struggle for Namibia, 1960-1991: War by Other Means. Finally, Joshua Forrest's Namibia's Post-Apartheid Regional Institutions: The Founding Year, explores the Regional Councils and the second chamber of parliament (the National Council, established in 1993) through document reviews, observation, and extensive interviews with the participants.

Namibia rightly has acquired a reputation as one of the most promising African countries to experience a "second wind" of democracy during the 1990s. This reputation is based in part on the profoundly democratic character of the written constitution (with its entrenched protections for basic rights), lively multi-party elections, reconciliation policies between formerly warring adversaries, and favorable economic prospects. Careful scholarly assessments of the actual processes and institutions that undergird this reputation are needed. The three books under review here make an excellent start toward such scholarly evaluations. Together with similar works recently published or underway, these works demonstrate real accomplishment and continuing tensions in Namibia's democratic transformation.

Gino Naldi attempts to assess the quality and direction of Namibia's commitment to human rights by comparing the constitutional language that was adopted, and court decisions extending or clarifying the law, to international standards established by Western nations (mostly European Union), the African [Banjul] Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights of the OAU, and other experiences from Southern Africa (mostly Zimbabwean and very recent South African experiences). What he finds in broad measure is that Namibia rates well compared to the highest liberal democrat-ic standards, exceeding the West in some measures of human rights, such as the banishment of the death penalty and environmental and language protections, and exceeding the somewhat vague African standards in the Banjul Declaration in terms of political freedoms of association and press.

Naldi applies these comparisons not only to the constitution itself but also to the early judicial interpretations, including one judgement that contradicted the government on a very emotional issue: overturning legislation against a group called Cultura 2000, whose financing by the previous regime to foster "white" culture was widely and officially seen as a publicly financed continuation of apartheid racism. The government set an important precedent in reinforcing the priority of the rule of law. On the whole, Naldi finds that court decisions strengthen the constitutional commitments to human rights and clarify or strengthen the liberal individualist positions established by the Namibian Constituent Assembly's constitutional deliberations after the 1989 independence election. Naldi reports the Supreme Court's call to apply international human rights norms to the constitutional guarantees in place since 1990, and he examines and compares more than forty Namibian court cases to assess how international standards should be applied.

In addition to constitutional commitments, such as "entrenching" fundamental freedoms and rights against any later amendment, the judiciary has sought to restrain itself...