For some time now there have been persistent reports that officials at the Department of Justice are increasingly becoming venal, receiving and in some worse cases soliciting money in return for destroying dockets and or documents in the files as a way of assisting accused criminals to get off the hook.
Officials at the department of justice are the latest entrants in a racket that has traditionally been dominated by police officers.
These are very serious allegations that have the potential to pollute and contaminate the confidence that the public has in the country’s judicial systems and processes.
Up until the Botswana Police Service took decisive steps to root out corruption within its ranks, the rot was so systemic that it threatened to undo the great work and commitment by many police officers who are doing the best under what are plainly the difficult of circumstances.
While traffic cops are known to take bribes, the situation is of course worse in other neighbouring countries, especially South Africa and Zimbabwe. But the fact that.
We have in the past noted that efforts by the police leadership to fight internal corruption had borne some fruits.
We however have learnt that this form of corruption has metamorphosed and assumed a new dimension.
Corrupt elements among the traffic cops cadre are now targeting the expatriate population.
The Asian community has now become the biggest target and victims of these elements.
The Chinese and Indians, many of whom are known to carry large sums of cash with them are ruthlessly pursued for minor traffic offences, the kind of offences citizen drivers are not normally pursued for.
While taking corruption is on its own an unpardonable crime just as is giving it, targeting certain communities and singling them out for particular harassment is even more reprehensible as it has subtle racial profiling underpinnings attached to it.
We cannot have a situation where police officials turn expatriates into easy prey through a capricious application of double standards; where there is one set of rules for black people and another set of rules for other races.
What the corrupt elements in the police traffic division are doing tarnishes the image of the country because when these expatriate go back to their native countries they tell other people how they always were able to circumvent the rule of law by giving out a few coins (for to them that is all they ever give, given that many of them are dollar rich) to the corruptible police officers.
And for that we want to call the leadership of the Police service to once again employ renewed strategies similar to those that were used a few years ago to root out the few bad cops from the ranks of the service. Enough about the Police Service!
At some time the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime was investigating a magistrate who was alleged to have been taking bribes from accused persons so as to acquit them. The fact that such an allegation even arose is bad enough.
In yet another disturbing case an attorney working for the Directorate of Public Prosecutions was recently dragged before the courts for soliciting bribes from an accused in return for dropping the charges.
Only last week it was reported that the Police officers and court officials had colluded to get a convicted criminal off the jail walls. That is really scary.
All these cases point to a deteriorating situation that if not addressed will erode public confidence in our judicial system.
We call on those responsible for managing the various departments that work towards ensuring the integrity of the judicial system to also work at tightening the screws as a way of protecting the public trust that the nation has invested in our judicial system.
Once lost, restoring the public trust is never easy. 
