That President Masisi is under siege consequent to probably out of his making is not in doubt. This probably because the actors in these matters are believed to be beholden to him because he has directly appointed them. Very important national matters requiring his urgent attention keep piling in his in-tray yet, it appears he is in no hurry to dispose of them. There is a matter between the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) Director General Rre Tymon Katlholo and the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS) Director General Rre Peter Magosi wherein Rre Katlho has been suspended from duty seemingly, for misconduct. Next in the President’s in-tray is the matter of complaint raised by Judge Gaolapelwe Ketlogetswe of the Lobatse High Court to the President through a 22 paragraph Confidential letter dated 11 August 2022 and with a heading ‘Re:Interference With The Judicial Independence Of A Judge-Chief Justice Terence Rannowane And Honourable Kabo Neale Sechele Morwaeng’. The Chief Justice is reported to have made his own representations to the President in response to Ketlogetswe J complaint. It is not known whether Minister Morwaeng has responded to the complaint as it mentions him.
There is also the recent explosive revelations by Kgosi Mosadi Seboko that the President informed her during the ill-fated State House meeting in which she was not allowed to bring anyone to accompany her and in which she was ordered to switch off her mobile phone. To be fair to the President, this is a new matter. That notwithstanding, he is personally alive to contents of the meeting through which he must not struggle with dealing with as presumably, he was the chair and the lead actor. Over and above the foregoing, the Law Society of Botswana has written him two letters with respect to firstly, the contents of Ketlogetswe J complaint and secondly, the one to do with how Judge Itumeleng Segopolo wound his attachment to his legal firm when he was appointed to judgeship. The Society feels very strongly there is more to Segopolo J matter than meets the eye because notwithstanding the fact that they have engaged him and the Chief Justice, very little if any, has resulted from such engagements. The Society posits it has written to the President with a view that he causes to be instituted a Tribunal to determine whether the Chief Justice and Segopolo J are still fit and proper to occupy judicial positions they currently occupy. It has since turned out the Society has issued a Statutory 30-day notice to the President.
It is important to mention that the above matters in the President’s in-tray are absolutely serious to the extent that they do not offer him the luxury of using his discretion. The Constitution compels him to act as expeditiously as possible. These would be matters raised by the Law Society of Botswana with respect to the establishment of a Tribunal to determine the veracity of issues as raised by Ketlogetswe J against the Chief Justice and those raised by the Society against Segopolo J. Further to this, the matters of DCEC v DIS border on overall governance at the Government Enclave particularly with respect to arguably, two important State institutions whose mandates are to deal with corruption and economic crime on one hand and on the other, the intelligence and security of this Republic.
Rre Katlholo was suspended at the beginning of June 2022 by the Vice President Rre Slumber Tsogwane who was the Acting President at the time. He said ‘The decision to suspend Katlholo is necessitated by the fact that in the course of his official duties, he has misconducted himself and exhibited a behaviour that is incompatible with the conduct of a public officer’. It will be recalled two press releases were issued with respect to the suspension on the same day from the Office of the President. It will also be recalled the suspension was meted on Rre Katlholo consequent to his explosive investigations on Rre Magosi and some of the high profile officers of the DIS on account of corruption, bribery and living beyond their means. It is now six months since Rre Katlholo was suspended and no disciplinary proceedings have (to the best of my recollection) been instituted against him to find out if indeed he conducted himself ‘…in a behaviour that is incompatible with the conduct of a public officer’. As the appointing authority, the President is expected to ensure the charge against Rre Katlholo is expeditiously dispensed with in the name of fairness and natural justice. It should be fair to conclude Rre Katlholo should be singing the phrase ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. It may very well be that there were never any substantive reasons to suspend and charge Rre Katlholo hence the disciplinary proceedings failing to commence. It should be fair to suggest the President is seriously reluctant to get this matter out of his overflowing in-tray possibly because one of his trusted lieutenant in the person of Rre Peter Magosi is believed to be the architect of Rre Katlholo’s suspension and work related troubles.
Given the fact that the judiciary has of late been in the news for all the wrong reasons, one would have expected the President to have moved swiftly to deal with any issue impacting negatively on it. The complaint by Ketlogetswe J with respect to his allegation that the Chief Justice and the Minister for State President Rre Kabo Morwaeng tried or in fact influenced him to rule against Hon Matsheka is a matter that tarnishes Botswana’s credentials on Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law. The allegations against Segopolo J are also concerning. It is only fair that a credible and transparent process is instituted to get to the bottom of the allegations against the two judges in order to find where the truth lies. It does not do justice to the two judges to be having a dark cloud of serious allegations against them which in and of themselves border on their worthiness or lack thereof to hold judicial office. Because the judges themselves cannot order a Tribunal to investigate allegations against them, they are at the mercy of the President who is empowered by the Constitution to order that such a Tribunal be established but is seemingly, reluctant to do so.
To buttress the point that the President is reluctant or unwilling to deal with the Chief Justice/Minister Morwaeng versus Ketlogetswe J, his office has uncharacteristically failed to issue a statement on the allegations by Ketlogetswe J as opposed to the same being quickly issued against Kgosi Mosadi’s allegations. What possibly could be the reason the President has not acted promptly to deal with these high profile matters?
I have held the belief I still hold that the President was aware that some form of pressure was going to be exerted on Ketlogetswe J. It is hard to impossible that a Minister in the President’s office could undertake such an undertaking without the concurrence of the President for the consequences are too ghastly to contemplate. Minister Morwaeng would have known that he would have signed his own political obituary had he undertaken such a ‘reconnaissance mission’ without the express permission of his General. The President has come out as someone who acts with surgical precision over public office holders who do not toe his line. We have seen how the erstwhile Permanent Secretary and his deputy as the health ministry were surgically removed from office. We have also seen how the erstwhile Permanent Secretary at the finance ministry was similarly removed. The examples are just too many. The long and short of it is that the President is not acting because his trusted lieutenants are at the centre of matters in his in-tray. You will recall that Kebonang J called upon the President to take disciplinary action against the erstwhile Director of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, his then deputy and the Chief Investigator in the Butterfly fabricated matter. It has since been established the case has been fabricated out of the mouth of none other than the Chief Justice himself.
Based on the above, it is my considered view that while the President’s in-tray is over flowing with urgent matters bordering on the Constitution and other laws of this Republic to which he swore to protect and defend at all times, he has decided to render these instruments inconsequential. If he is addicted to the Rule of Law as it has been suggested, he would have acted with the speed of light as soon as he was aware that the most senior judge in the land and arguably the most senior Minister in his office are surrounded by serious allegations which if proved, could possibly relieve them of heir offices. But because he is increasingly becoming the practitioner of selective justice, his in-tray continues to overflow because there is no willingness on his part to promptly empty it. In the meantime, the Constitution and other laws of the Republic will remain haemorrhaged thereby causing the judiciary to lose confidence from its customers-members of the public. The international community will label Botswana as one of those countries which continue to fail the Rule of Law test. Foreign direct investors will be sceptical to invest here because the judiciary is on the basis of the unfolding allegations, infiltrated by the executive. Certainty on judicial independence is non-negotiable for investors for obvious reasons. I am prepared to be persuaded otherwise as always.
Judge for Yourself!
