Suspension of judges riles attorney
Oarabile Mosikare | Friday December 18, 2015 16:35
Since the suspension of the quartet, acting judges have been employed to take over the cases that have been allocated to the suspended judges. Apparently, attorneys have been receiving notifications from the Registrar of the High Court, Michael Motlhabi informing them about the status hearing of the cases that were presided over by the suspended judges.
Now some lawyers have notified Motlhabi that they will not assist the acting judges on the status of cases. One such lawyer is Martin Dingake representing a Molepolole family that had dragged the Commissioner of Police, Keabetswe Makgophe for the release of Olefile Momphitlhi who has been missing for three years. This week, Dingake wrote to Motlhabi questioning the allocation of his case to acting Justice Jennifer Dube.
The matter was allocated to suspended Justice Ranier Busang upon registration and he heard a week long evidence in this matter and directed parties to file their submissions at the conclusion of trial. “Whilst the parties were yet to file their final submissions, Justice Busang was suspended from office and remains so suspended to this date,” said Dingake.
Dingake said he has not heard from Motlhabi’s office or that of the Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo as to the future conducts of the matter or a notice for reallocation of the matter to a new judge. He said on December 13, 2015 he received a call from state attorney that the matter is scheduled for a status hearing before Dube the following day.
“It seems the matter was once enrolled for the status hearing in the past. In both instances, this was without notice to both counsel involved in the matter. Consequently, and owing to prior engagements neither counsel could attend to the matter and without instruction from client.”
Of particular concern is the basis of status hearing without notice for reallocation of the matter to another judge and the removal of Busang from the matter.
“We do not know, for example, whether Dube Ag. J is seized of the matter and if she is, who allocated it to her and on what basis.
Neither have we been informed whether by assigning the matter to her what should become of the week long trial and the work and preparation that went into that work.”
The attorney is worried if this supposed ‘reallocation’ means that Busang is not coming back or if he is, he will no longer be in charge of this case going forward. If he is not set to come back, who bears the costs of such a marathon week long trial that was conducted before Busang.
“From the plaintiff’s point of view, we will really appreciate a response from this letter and in particular, as to the source of authority for whomsoever did the reallocation and to the concerned judge.
“We are unable to assist Dube Ag. J as to the status of the case without a substantive response to the matters we raise in this letter and as to the future conduct of the case. We would be particularly interested to know the criterion used to allocate the matter to Dube Ag. J as opposed to any other judge,” concluded Dingake.