The government’s multi-million Pula legal aid pilot project is long overdue but commendable.
This is particularly so because a lot of Batswana, especially the poor and uneducated have long endured complex cases without affording legal assistance from their own finances.
The introduction of the legal aid should come as a relief to many accused people who have been arraigned before the courts but could not afford to engage the services of lawyers due to their financial standing.
Former Chief Justice, Julian Nganunu, once acknowledged that people with money were able to defend their cases more soundly because they were able to engage different experts to help them dig out information that an ordinary person is unable to.
The same sentiments were echoed by former Regional Magistrate South and now High Court Judge Lot Moroka who said one of the difficulties he had encountered in his many years as a judicial officer was lack of representation of the poor.
He said it was disturbing that even in civil cases where the respondents would have opposed certain applications, they had failed to do so because they lacked the legal knowledge on the importance of making opposition to such applications.
Although the details of the legal aid are not yet public, we want to underscore that the aid should be skewed towards the poor who cannot afford to engage lawyers to do their cases. This is especially so given that the constitution guarantees the right to legal representation although it is at one’s own cost.
We may not be wrong to assume that there might be a lot of people in our jails who were convicted for crimes that they had not committed.
A perusal of the Court of Appeal rolls on criminal matters frequently denotes lack of representation of the convicts who are appealing their convictions and sentences.
At times their appeals are thrown our merely because their papers are not in order. We are not in any way trying to launch an attack against the judiciary, but it is a fact that if the papers are not in order the best that the courts can do is to dismiss the appeal.
So with the advent of the legal aid, we hope that it will also go a long way in assisting the courts to arrive at just decisions without much hassles as had been the case previously.
A lot of wronged people have not prosecuted their cases because of lack of knowledge to seek legal recourse. We are hopeful that a lot of public education will be put into the project to ensure that it is all encompassing so that it does not benefit a few privileged if not those lucky to know about its existence.
We, therefore, urge the Attorney General to educate Members of Parliament on the legal aid so that they can fully share the information with their electorates.
In addition, this may call for the AG’s Chambers to form a public education department, specifically for the purpose of reaching out to the people in the country’s outposts to educate them about the legal aid.
The same education should be extended to the chiefs to ensure that the project reaches out to all and sundry so that they are eligible to benefit.
As for those who are piloting the project, we urge them to undertake proper studies to assess properly who should be eligible to benefit under the scheme.
At the end of it all, the government should be commended for piloting this long overdue project and we hope it will not be abused under any circumstances.
In Botswana, it is a fact that legal representation is expensive and, therefore, a move by government in this direction is a move in the right direction as justice should not only be seen to be done but should be done.
