In a Press Release, dated 16 July 2008, J.W.F. Pretorius, Chairman of Monitor Action Group, said:
The stubborn refusal of the government of Namibia to listen to pleas and their resistance to debate alleged unconstitutional acts, may result in a big embar-rassment for the govern-ment.
Eventually MONITOR ACTION GROUP was forced to get legal opinions, on its own account, in connection with the correct constitutional imple-mentation of affirmative action.
Against the background of the constitution of Namibia as the supreme law, the legal opinion, inter alia, revealed the following:
(a) It is illegal, according to Art. 23 of Namibia’s constitution to appoint or to promote, a non-Namibian with the same quali-fications, to the disad-vantage of a Namibian citizen, black or white.
(b) It is unconstitutional to give preference to any black or brown learner, as a member of a designated group, who completed Grade 12 in 2002, or after that year.
(c) It is illegal to prevent any white woman farmer to apply for the exception of land tax;
(d) And then, perhaps the most drastic: The Agribank Affirmative Action Loan Scheme, according to which hundreds of farms were bought by black owners, is illegal because it is not regulated or go-verned by the necessary legislation.
The legal advisor preferred not to give his opinion on the continuous accusation of MONITOR ACTION GROUP, that the imple-mentation and the inter-pretation of Art. 23 of constitution by the govern-ment did not reflect the true intention of the law-maker (Constituent Assem-bly). According to the legal advisor he could not make a study of the relevant documents, because the complete minutes of the Subcommittee of the Constituent Assembly were not released yet for public notice and analysis.