Hertta-Maria Amutenja
A Keetmanshoop farmer, Ingrid Mariana Nolte has lost her fight against the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism to have two cheetahs registered to her farm in a judgement delivered in the High Court yesterday.
Judge Collins Parker said there was no sufficient evidence presented to the Minister of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta to how the Nolte came in possession of the two cheetahs.
“I find that no sufficient or satisfactory evidence was placed before the minister as to how the applicant came in possession of the two cheetahs. When the applicant was making the application, she never informed the minister about Mr Bucks, who, according to the applicant, gave her the cheetahs. I do not see why Mr Bucks could not have settled a sworn declaration to support the applicant’s contention. Such declaration could have been attached to the applicant’s application for the minister’s consideration,” he said.
Nolte, in whose care the cheetahs have been for nearly five years, wanted the High Court to review and set aside environment minister Pohamba Shifeta’s decision to reject her application for the registration of the two cheetahs known as Nika and Zandile.
In her application, she did not name the person who had given her the animals. On 30 October 2020, she was charged with the offence of keeping two game or wild animals without a permit in terms of the Ordinance.
She applied in July 2018 after claiming that a person who later on turned out to be one Mr Bucks gave her two cheetah cubs in a box at the parking lot of Shoprite in Keetmanshoop in April 2018.
According to the documents she had kept the cubs for almost three months before making the requisite application in terms of the Nature Conservation Ordinance 4 of 1975.
Judge Parker said the minister gave two reasons for rejecting the application and he was entitled to that decision or rejecting the application because she could not prove that she acquired the cheetahs lawfully.
“The weightier reason that goes to the root of the Ordinance was that the applicant was unable to give a satisfactory account or prove that she acquired the cheetahs lawfully as demanded by s 51 of the Ordinance. The court found further that the minister was entitled to take into account in his decision-making the fact that the applicant kept the cheetahs in contravention of s 51 of the Ordinance and she was unable to give a satisfactory account or prove that she acquired the cheetahs lawfully” Judge Parker ruled.
Furthermore, Nolte alleged the minister failed to comply with the requirement imposed by the Nature Conservation Ordinance and that his decision was based solely on the issue of the size of her yard.
However, Parker found that Shifeta complied with the Ordinance when he rejected the application with good reasons.
“There is nowhere in the reasons given by the minister that it is indicated that his decision was based solely on the issue of the size of the yard only. Indeed, to review and set aside the minister’s decision would amount to the court perpetuating illegality. I do not see in what manner, as the applicant alleges, the minister failed to comply with the requirement imposed by the Nature Conservation Ordinance. On the contrary, I find that the minister complied with the Ordinance when he rejected the application with good reasons. In that regard the minister carried out also duties imposed on him by article 95(1) and article 100, read with article 101, of the Namibian Constitution,” said Parker.
The case was dismissed with the cost of the suit going to Nolte
