By Musa Mdluli

MBABANE:Judge Ticheme Dlamini messed-up the SwaziMed court case, he allegedly failed to declare a conflict of interest by virtue of being the Uncle(Babe lomncane) to Eswatini Med Chief Financial Officer(CFO) Nokuthula Dlamini.

It has been disclosed that, the SwaziMed Chief Financial Officer is closely related to the Judge such that, Judge Ticheme Dlamini was the one who officially ‘handed her over’ to her husband when she got married.

But despite these facts known to the Honorable Judge, he failed to recuse himself and went on to issue an order stopping the SwaziMed Annual General Meeting(AGM), Judges are legally restricted from presiding over matter with an undeclared conflict of interest.

Judge Dlamini’s interest in the matter was exposed after he tried to force Business Eswatini(BE) not to withdraw a contempt of court application against Chairman Sammy Dlamini and Chief Executive Officer(CEO) Peter Simelane.

Business Eswatini withdraw the case saying, the matter “will now be resolved through dialogue but the Honorable Judge told the litigants that”, he wants both Chief Executive Officer Peter Simelane and Board Chairman Sammy Dlamini to appear in court for defying his court order stopping the SwaziMed Annual General Meeting.

Worth-noting, the Judge’s daughter Nokuthula Dlamini was at the centre of the legal battle, she was appointed as the Acting Principal Officer by the other Board led by Bheki Maziya and this means, Judge Ticheme Dlamini was abusing his judicial powers to fight battles on behalf of his daughter thus violating the judicial code of conduct.

On Wednesday night, Eswatini Med CEO Peter Simelane through his lawyer Mangaliso Magagula, ran to the Supreme Court to stop Judge Ticheme Dlamini’s contempt of court proceedings against him and the Board Chairman.

“Firstly, the primary basis upon which the relief is sought is that the learned Judge a quo Justice T. Dlamini violated the Constitution, first, by presiding in a matter in which he was automatically disqualified from presiding over the proceedings by virtue of his relationship as an uncle(Babe lomncane) of Nokuthula Dlamini, who was then the substantive Chief Financial Officer of the 3rd Applicant and was shortly before the institution of the proceedings presided over by Justice T Dlamini appointed by a faction of the Board as interim Principal Officer. I was the substantive Principal Officer and was exercising functions of office and I had the support of the majority of the Board including those appointed by the Government as the principal shareholder of the 3rd Applicant”, reads the court papers or affidavit filed by the Eswatini Med CEO.

The matter was heard by the Supreme Court on Thursday morning and postponed to the 12th September 2025.