By Musa Mdluli

MBABANE:The lawyers representing editor Zweli Martin Dlamini and this Swaziland News wrote an email last week, informing King Mswati and Eswatini Government’s lawyers that Senior Advocate Myron Dewrance will, early next year, be ready for the King Mswati and Eswatini Government’s application for leave to appeal.

The Eswatini King and the Government through Attorney General Sifiso Khumalo, filed an application for leave to appeal for losing a Mpumalanga High Court case against the editor and this publication, the court ordered that the applicants represented by Acting Prime Minister Themba Masuku must pay the editor and the Swaziland News legal costs.

Worth-noting, the Eswatini Government filed an application for leave to appeal in 2024 and never demonstrated any pressure to have it urgently heard by the court until the editor instructed his legal team a few weeks ago to make a follow-up so that the matter could be included in the court roll.

But the legal costs might increase should the King and the Eswatini Government lose the appeal, the matter has been dragging for five(5) years now and the judgement in favour of the editor and the Swaziland News was delivered in 2024.

Attorney General(AG) Sifiso Khumalo through the then Acting Prime Minister, instructed South African lawyers to write a letter to the editor, demanding to be given seven (7) days before responding to questionnaires while on the other hand, banning public officials from responding.

The editor viewed and described this as a strategic litigation and refused to grant the King and the Eswatini Government the seven days saying “doing so will delay the dissemination of news or information to the public”, the editor maintained that answers to questionnaires must be forwarded timely.

But AG through the then Acting Prime Minister Themba Masuku who was claiming to be representing Mswati, all public officials and royal family members, filed an application that was subsequently dismissed by the court.

The editor will have an alternative to file a fresh court application seeking to attach King’s or Government properties including South African investments in the event the Government or Mswati refuse or delay to pay the legal costs that might amount to millions considering the number of Advocates and lawyers defending the Swaziland News and the editor.