It has been quite some time since fortunately the public got to know through the press that; the most venerable Chief Justice had written a circular to the Attorney General bemoaning the trend of forum shopping said to be taking place in the legal fraternity and thus obviously affecting the dispensation of justice at the High Court.
This was followed by action taken by several Justices of the High Court who were riled by the issuance of the said circular and who at the time it is also reported felt insulted and went on to engage the Chief Justice and later staged a sit in apparently to protest what they are said to have thought of as being tarred with the same brush and also for what it is now turning out to be unsubstantiated allegations.
This issue is now in the public domain and cannot be wished away as easily as the Chief Justice and other stakeholders would like it to be. The High Court is an esteemed institution that should uphold the highest moral standards. The cornerstone of every public institution is to serve the people. For the CJ to expect the people to acquiesce with this kind of behavior on his part is tantamount to undermining the people of this country. No citizen of this country should allow this to continue and must demand answers from the Chief Justice. If there was need for a gestation period of this issue it has now elapsed. Now is the time to act. Given that the Judiciary was presented with an opportunity on February 04, 2014 during which the Chief Justice, the Law Society and the Attorney General (Ao! Home Girl, Bapedi will judge us harshly) should have assured the public that this tide has been stemmed and completely eliminated. These are bare knuckle instincts.
The Chief Justice is now playing mind games with the public. The Chief Justice must understand that some of us have suffered psychological damage and financial losses as a result of corrupt practices and abuse of power by the person who occupied this position before him. He should also come to the realisation that the organization he currently heads has contributed to this state of affairs. This trend is now becoming the norm in the Botswana society because people who have been entrusted with positions of responsibility and authority have unashamedly abused public trust. He should give the public an insightful picture on this saga before these become forlorn hopes and expectations.
So far the Chief Justice has failed dismally to live up to the expectations of the public and the nation at large. Looked at from a different prism the Chief Justice has failed those who seek redress from the High Court more importantly innocent citizens who have cases filed with the High Court and are still pending One cannot help thinking that the CJ’s actions were either speculative, misleading or outright lies. The question is where is the information to prove that this has been taking place? Concrete evidence is required in the form of names of Judges and attorneys involved in this practice. The public needs to be informed of the action that has been or will be taken against these culprits, past or present.
Honorable Chief Justice Sir, who are they and what action have you taken or intend to take against them? The High Court bench is currently intact and all Justices are presiding over cases – forum shopped or otherwise. The Law Society has not suspended any of its members and the unsuspecting members of the public have continued to engage the services of legal practitioners; some of whom maybe on your list of wrong doers. When you were presented with the opportunity during the opening of the Legal Year, you Honorable Chief Justice should have informed the public about the status of Judges who have in the past been forum shopped and bribed.
That Sir, should have compelled you to inform us whether they have been suspended, asked to resign or recommended for sacking by the appointing authority. But to you Sir, it is business as usual. No Sir, it cannot be like that.
This is anachronistic behavior. The Chief Justice must extol virtues and an attitude that clearly portrays him as an uncompromising personality with impeccable honesty. He must stop behaving like an armchair moralist. This country has for a long a time been gripped by a pervasive cesspool of corrupt practices, the effects of which are exacerbated by appointment of inherently corrupt people to positions of authority.
The Chief Justice is not at all expected to move in lockstep with such behavior. He must address the dichotomy that has caused the kind of continuum of harm I have suffered at the hands of one of his predecessors.
He must also stop behaving like a wimp with excessive idiocy and an inflated opinion of himself. He must act and do so for the restoration of confidence in the judicial system and assure the public that his moral aptitude can pass any rigorous test. This because there are matters before the High Court involving members of the public who should be assured that their cases are not being presided over by corrupt and forum shopped Judges. So far, having been a victim of similar circumstances I am not convinced because when I penned an article following these revelations I clearly indicated that this trend had been going on for a long time and dated back to the days of the CJ’s predecessor and beyond and that the time had come to openly clean up the rot he had identified in the bench and judicial system and not only get rid of Judges who were abusing their positions but also haul them before the coals.
Judges who have been involved in such practices should be prosecuted and made to pay for their actions. But then again one wonders if the DCEC has taken the initiative to knock on the CJ’s door to check the veracity of these allegations and investigate. Or they are still behaving like 2 months old babies waiting to grow up and be blessed with milk teeth. And then again we should acknowledge that with the advent of DIS the DCEC has long become irrelevant and fast becoming a facilitator of corrupt practices through bungling of cases.
The position taken by the Law Society is not helping the situation. Radio interviews and interactive discussions with the Society’s spokesperson have given an impression that their main interest would be to fish out those that are suspected to have been involved in the practice. How about those that have had or still have to defend forum shopped cases? The Law Society must ask the Chief Justice to give them full details of all cases that were forum shopped and have them re-tried or re-prosecuted at the expense of the guilty parties. We cannot live in a country and consider ourselves to be citizens and yet not hold those in positions of authority accountable to us. Once one has identified any corrupt practices they must use every means at their disposal to get rid of the disease. Once you condone corruption you are no better off than the perpetrator; you are more corrupt than they are.
