Cape Town: After being denied in-person legal representation for nine months while detained in a maximum-security prison, the Supreme Court of the African kingdom of Eswatini has decided that four men who were sent there by the United States last July as part of the Trump administration’s third-country deportation program can now finally meet with an attorney.
The Eswatini administration promptly appealed a lower court’s earlier ruling allowing local attorney Sibusiso Nhlabatsi, who is representing the men’s US-based attorneys, to speak with them. In a decision rendered on Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected Eswatini authorities’ claims that the deportees had no access to legal representation because they had not been detained or accused of a crime in Eswatini and that they did not wish to meet with Nhlabatsi.
As the final absolute monarchy in Africa, Eswatini’s government has been accused of forcefully suppressing pro-democracy demonstrations. In a statement released on Friday, US-based attorney Alma David of Novo Legal Group, who represents two of the four deported men, said that it “speaks volumes about how hard the government of Eswatini is fighting to deny these men the most basic of rights” that it took nine months of litigation before the men could meet with an attorney.
At least eight African countries, including Eswatini, have agreements with the US government to accept deported foreign nationals. The program has been used by the Trump administration in its immigration drive to swiftly remove illegal immigrants from the United States who are difficult to return to their home nations.
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