A Constitutional review or a joke?

Mmegi Editor | Monday March 14, 2022 06:00

The 19-member team led by former Chief Justice, Maruping Dibotelo has been going around the country holding Kgotla meetings to collate ideas, views and opinions of Batswana on whether the Constitution is still relevant. The consultations are specifically meant to find out whether the communities feel there is need to review certain clauses and perhaps add more should it be deemed necessary.

Upon completion of its enquiry, the Commission shall submit a report with recommendations to the State President not later than the end of September 2022.

However, it seems the team’s efforts are not bearing fruit as the same Batswana who are supposed to be contributing ideas are not familiar with the Constitution of their own country. Following a number of Kgotla meetings that have already been held, it is becoming more evident that perhaps the process should have started with cross country educational sessions on the Constitution for people in their mother tongue for better understanding before participation. It is also becoming clearer by the day that contributions from the general public are not focused and in some instances participants spend too much time discussing general welfare issues for individuals.

Furthermore, there is confusion as to how the team is going to integrate public input into its report and how the recommendations will fit into the overall constitutional review.

On another sphere, many intellectuals and other ordinary Batswana have bashed President Mokgweetsi Masisi for adopting a top-down approach to the Constitutional reform. They argue that this approach is bound to attract overt and covert resistance, which will eventually lead to rejection or lack of ownership of the exercise from Batswana.

Some members of the public feel the President should have benchmarked from other countries that have successfully reviewed their constitutions and even those which have failed to review their constitutions successfully in order to come up with reforms that will bring about desirable outcomes. It is important for the review of the Constitution to be as inclusive as possible and not be seen to be serving interests of certain groups or being partisan.

Opposition parties and trade unions have expressed displeasure about the processes of choosing the Commission of Inquiry and they felt that there was no inclusion as the process was not democratic. At some point, Botswana Congress Party president, Dumelang Saleshando filed an urgent motion to halt the review process arguing that Parliament should have made an input on it. BOFEPUSU, a trade union federation also felt that the review was undemocratic and fraudulent and could lead to political turmoil in the future as the Commission is run through influence from the Office of the President. Constitutional review is an intense process and it needs to done with transparency to ensure that the outcome serves citizens equally.

Today's thought

“The Constitution was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its its chief greatness.”

– Woodrow Wilson.