A court in eSwatini has ruled that the first five migrants the United States (US) President’s Donald Trump administration sent to the African kingdom have a right to a lawyer, after they were denied \u200blegal representation on their transfer from the US to a Swazi jail \u200bin July.<\/p>\n
The court rejected a government argument that the detainees had \u2060not specifically requested the human rights lawyer Sibusiso Nhlabatsi represent them. Nhlabatsi \u200bhas been trying to fight the migrants’ case without access to them.<\/p>\n
“There can be \u200bno real harm in granting the Respondent access to the detainees,” the three judges ruled in a decision reviewed by Reuters.
\n“If they do not wish to see the Respondent (they can) \u200btell this to the Respondent to his face,” they said.<\/p>\n
The detainees are among \u200bat least 19 third-country migrants from various countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas that Trump’s \u200cadministration \u2060deported to eSwatini\u00a0as part of its crackdown on immigration. Other countries have also hosted migrants deported from the US<\/p>\n
The judgment only applies to the first five arrivals, as the challenge was first launched on their behalf, although it could \u200bset a precedent \u200bfor the others. \u2060eSwatini, an absolute monarchy ruled by King Mswati III, has released only two of the detainees so far, a Jamaican \u200bman last year and a Cambodian in March.<\/p>\n
Lawyers in eSwatini\u00a0\u200band the \u2060US have challenged the legality of the $5.1 million deal between the two countries, which has resulted in deportees being incarcerated in the southern African nation despite having \u2060already served \u200bsentences for crimes committed on US soil.<\/p>\n
The high \u200bcourt last month threw out a case filed by a local human rights lawyer that challenged the \u200bdeal itself, though the lawyer has appealed.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16035,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-31303","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Lawyers in eSwatini\u00a0\u200band the \u2060US have challenged the legality of the $5.1 million deal between the two countries.","published_date":"","news_description":"Lawyers in eSwatini\u00a0\u200band the \u2060US have challenged the legality of the $5.1 million deal between the two countries.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31304,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31303\/revisions\/31304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}