In Botswana, with a population about 2.35m people living across 519 officially recognized villages, justice can be a long journey, literally. Fresh figures tabled in Parliament show how thinly spread the country’s courts are, with only 25 Magistrate Courts and 55 magistrates serving the entire population.
The result is a system in which one court, on average, must serve more than 93,000 people and about 21 villages, while each magistrate is responsible for roughly nine villages. For citizens in remote areas, the distance between the law and daily life can be measured in kilometres as much as in procedure.
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