Those of us concerned with the health of our democracy should be worried by the frequency with which our judiciary gets embroiled in nasty little scandals.
The judiciary was until a few years ago the only remaining bulwark of our democracy.
That was before five High Court judges were summarily suspended and a number of them made to sign apologies to the president clearly under duress.
The whole episode drove some of them to near mental collapse.
It was then that many of us realized that High Court Judges were just ordinary people.
Before then judges were venerated, revered and even worshipped.
We made them into nothing short of a deity. And treated them as if they were pious.
Johan Kriggler – an outstanding legal mind who sat on the first Constitutional Court of South Africa had twenty years earlier hinted at the fact that judges were not sages, much less saints.
He warned against giving them too much power that included determining even matters of life and death.
Judges were only lawyers, glorified as they might be, he said at the time.
He said this in an opinion that ultimately outlawed the death penalty in that country.
In Botswana we are at long last getting to accept that judges are only lawyers after all, with all the frailties, intrigues and flaws that come with being a lawyer – nothing more, nothing less.
It is for many of us a culture shock.
There used to be a time when it was unthinkable that a High Court judge could just be retired with no adequate explanation save for a vague press release. Yet no less than three judges were retired a little over two weeks ago.
There used to be a time when it was unfathomable that a High Court judge could be suspended because of allegations of receiving housing allowances not due to them – yet that is what we saw happen with about five of our High Court judges.
There used to be a time when we could not imagine a high Court judge facing trial on allegations related to corruption. Yet that is exactly what we saw happen last year.
The most recent kerfuffle was when judges were part of the national elite that privately went for covid vaccines at some private residences owned by ruling party high priests.
That was terribly ham-fisted.
It has no doubt come at immense cost of public trust on the judiciary.
Judges should not be held as some part of a secret society.
Confidence in the judiciary is no longer where it used to be because of the frequency of such mistakes.
This should be a matter of concern, because the judiciary is not some abstract phenomenon.
An independent judiciary is really the bulwark of a democracy – the last line of defense against all excesses.
Yet today the line between the judiciary and the executive has become more and more blurred.
The blurred line was so apparent when the two walked hand in hand to receive their exclusive covid-19 vaccine jabs under some mysterious circumstances and at a property that not even the Registrar of the High Court could fully account for.
Was it recklessness? Was it neglect? Was it naivety? Whatever it was, the judiciary deserves better.
It is because of such incidents that Batswana no longer have faith on the men and woman who still wear gowns and wigs that do not make much sense to our people.
Batswana look at the kind of cars and lifestyles of the judges and they quietly ask themselves if all these luxuries are really supported by the salaries of these men and women.
This too breeds cynicism.
The judges too should subject themselves to a lifestyle audit.
At stake is the credibility of the institution.
This is because allegations of misconduct going way beyond not delivering judgements on time persist.
That will not take us back to a time when they were revered, but it will do something towards inspiring trust and confidence.
We are definitely aware of the stress-tests that the judiciary is going through. What we do not know is how it will end.
In its current form, the stress test will continue.
It starts with the way the judges are appointed.
The Judicial service Commission is stacked with vested interests that make it inevitably hard to even trust the people appointed judges.
And then given the control freakery of our politicians, the security of tenure is no longer a guarantee.
But then the judiciary should still be protected, including from the corrupting influence associated with business.
The business sector will fast track the erosion of the trust in the judiciary if along the process they get their narrow and even personal interests protected along the way.
This comes at immense destruction of our institutions but also credibility of the judiciary in the eyes of the public.
As with so many of our institutions, the judiciary faces a tough task – reform or die.
Burying heads in the sands is not a solution.
Pretending there is nothing wrong can only lead to an abyss.
People on the bench should be lawyers who command the respect not only of their peers but also of society.
Today many judges are not held in high regard by other lawyers.
How are we the lesser mortals expected to hold them in awe?
