It might well be true that speaking on strict legal times, the President of the Court of Appeal, Ian Kirby has done nothing wrong.
But reducing his matter to a black and white legalistic debate, of which he is an unparalleled supremo would miss the point. And sure he has.
The fact of the matter is that Mr. Kirby has been found in a company of tax dodgers.
This is what should concern him as a judge.
I had a chance as I was driving around town to listen to his interview with Gabz Fm radio station as he tried to explain how his name ended up among those fingered by the “Panama Papers.”
The interview, I am afraid was totally unconvincing.
Without much success, the judge tried to occupy a moral high ground.
From the interview it would seem like Justice Kirby considers the whole affair in as far it affects him a nuisance.
He is irritated because simply does not seem to understand what the whole public shock about him really is about, following the leak of those papers.
For most of the interview, he confined himself to explaining that his investments, as laid bare by the Panama Papers leak, are afterall what everyone in society has been doing over the years.
Perhaps inevitably, he insisted that what he did was not illegal.
Coming from a senior judge, that is flawed thinking.
Important as it might be, the legality or illegality of it all is only half the story in as far as the accruing public shock is concerned.
There is still a long way before he convinces citizens of this country that he has not evaded tax, that he has not concealed any conflicts of interest and worse, that he has not laundered any illegal earnings, which effectively is really what the so called Panama Papers of which he is now a part are about.
For the media across the globe, this past week has been an exceptionally happy one.
Over the years there has been a near conviction among the media that the rich and powerful of the world were up to something really nasty with their finances.
What was however been lacking was evidence ÔÇô or the smoking gun, as the Americans call it.
With the leak occasioned by Panama Papers, all that was always lacking is now in the public domain.
And it makes for a scary reading.
From the interview, there was a whiff that Kirby was angry that he felt being singled out for doing nothing that was really illegal.
He kept pointing out that he was one of the many Batswana who were approached to make an investment that he together with others bought into.
The Judge President is missing the point. His line of thinking holds out clear attractions for people bent on refusing to accept moral responsibilities that come with the public positions they hold in society.
Coming from our legal hero, that is most disappointing.
To an extent that he feels he has done nothing, Mr. Kirby is unable to carry the rest of us along.
For a man reputed for watertight judgments that are extensively and convincingly argued, his interview with Gabz FM has come across as firmly defective.
For over a generation, Kirby has been a prominent figure in Botswana’s political and judicial system.
He has been Attorney General, High Court Judge, and now President of the Court of Appeal.
Put simply ÔÇô and this is what can easily be deduced from his interview with Gabz FM is that ever a legalistic mind, Ian Kirby does not see much wrong being found in a company of crooks.
He insists that because he himself is not a crook and has not done anything crooked, then there should be nothing to worry about.
That is flawed thinking coming from a man who has made his career on a reputation of a formidable legal mind.
As legal officers, Judges do not only serve to interpret our laws, it is also expected of them to provide us the lesser mortals with the moral compass needed to make us a better nation and a better people. In short, the judges have a civilizing duty to make all of us better human beings.
And when there is even a slightest suspicion that the judges may themselves be culprits of the exact vices of which the rest of us are prone to, the public uproar that so clearly irritates Mr. Kirby becomes inevitable.
The reason behind the public anger directed at Kirby is because he is held at much higher standards than the rest of us.
Kirby must resign, if not for himself then at least for Botswana’s judiciary ÔÇô an institution to which he has dedicated his life.
It might very well be true that the man has not done anything illegal. But it is also true that recent revelations have cast real doubts that can only be gotten rid off by him stepping aside.
Afterall resigning should for him be very easy, because, as he told Gabz FM he is not in the bench for money, but to simply provide a service.
When all is said and done, we must thank Mr. Kirby for one thing; he has succeeded in convincing us that for all the awe with which we hold them, judges are human. And that some of them, like all of us have their feet made of clay.
And from that we might as well add that the sanctity with which we have always held many of them was misplaced.
It is embarrassing that a whole Judge President has come out among a company of characters that Mr. Kirby found himself in the Panama Papers.
