Given its importance and growing influence, it was always a matter of time before accusations sprang to the fore that our judiciary was being politicized.
Accusations are now flying thick and fast that certain judges cannot be trusted to be impartial.
It does not get any graver than that.
Gone are the days when appointment to the judiciary was a matter of political indifference.
Nowadays the public demands to know the outlook of the incoming judges, where lies their sympathies, their past tract record and what political affiliations they might have held or sympathized with in the past.
This calls for a revolution not just in the transparency and accountability of our judges, but also, perhaps most crucially on just how they are appointed to the bench in the first instance.
The solution lies in improving the way we have been appointing our judges.
Exactly because of their growing influence, but also because they are now getting too close to the firing line as a result of growing litigiousness among Batswana, judges’ appointments become a subject of public debate.
My attitude is that parliament should hold ultimate confirmation hearings for new judges.
That would lift the secretive veil where some judges get appointed without there ever being pubic vacancy announcements for their positions as is currently the case.
Whatever our differences at the moment with regard to how judges, going forward, should be appointed, we need to agree that politicising the judiciary is one of the biggest mistakes we could commit as a country, given just how contaminated and polarized our politics have already become.
Once public trust in the judiciary is lost, restoring it could take forever.
We only have to look across the border in South Africa, where the effects of apartheid on the judiciary continue to stubbornly pervade the system many years after efforts to transform that country’s judiciary started.
The judiciary is about integrity, it’s about independence and perhaps most importantly it’s about impartiality.
Political expediency should never be allowed to take control of either the direction or texture of our judiciary.
Unlike the executive arm of government, the judges only have their integrity to their names.
They can never count on the armed forces to enforce their decisions or their will.
But slowly there are indications that a section of our public is losing faith in our judicial system.
We have to make one thing clear; there is absolutely nothing wrong criticising judgments, but it is important that such criticisms are not only measured but are also done from informed points of view.
Unfortunately, we have had recent instances where such criticisms have gone on to question the suitability and integrity of some judges. That cannot be right.
To address such issues, we have to go to the root cases, which in this instance is the way judges are appointed.
Given their importance and their growing power to determine settlements in our increasingly polarized society, it is very important that the sanctity of the judges is maintained.
But for that to happen judges have to do their bit. They have to play their role in ensuring that society’s long running respect and trust for the judiciary endures.
Undercurrents point to growing dissatisfaction that our bench is being deliberately staffed with political activists who are expected to do the bidding for the appointing authority ÔÇô whoever that authority might be!
Murmurs of political manipulation, while still somewhat muted, cannot be dismissed out of hand.
While it is not clear, at least for now, just what brings about these suspicions, we ignore them at our peril.
We should be worried once there are allegations, however wild, that an institution as important as the judiciary is being undermined solely for the benefit of certain individuals.
There used to be a time, not so long ago when the public looked at the judges as sages who were the closest things to God.
But an increasing number of stories revealing misdemeanors by this tribe has left many of us skeptical and wondering if our high regard for them has actually not been misplaced.
A judiciary that does not enjoy the respect of society that it serves cannot be expected to deliver on its mandate.
We should be careful not to allow our judiciary to become a laughing stock.
At the pace things are unfolding, the judiciary is the only remaining bulwark left between us and a dictatorship.
But it becomes problematic once a growing body of the public fails to see the distance between the judiciary and the dictatorship we are talking about.
In that score, it is very important that judges should themselves not be allowed to contribute to the erosion of faith the public has always reserved for the bench as an institution.
