Watch your mouths - Moroka warns
Lebogang Mosikare | Wednesday November 14, 2018 14:50
Moroka said so when presiding over the case in which Botswana Congress Party (BCP) has taken the Attorney General (AG), chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and secretary of the IEC to task over the use of the EVMs during elections.
The case was supposed to go for trial, but was postponed to November 29, 2018 when the court would deliver ruling on the BCP’s application for amendment of its heads of argument.
At the end of an application for amendment of BCP’s heads of arguments, Moroka said that he read somewhere that some leaders of political parties he did not mention castigated the court for not expeditiously disposing of the EVMs case.
When setting the trial dates for the case in August, Moroka stated that trial dates in the matter should be set at the nearest possible time because the case carries great national interest since it involves elections.
By then Moroka sacrificed other cases on his diary to accommodate the case in November.
On Wednesday, Moroka said: “I am very disappointed that we have not been able to use the dates we set for trial in this matter. I have read with disappointment somewhere that some political leaders of some parties were attributing the delay in finalising this case with this court”.
A clearly worried Moroka then warned those political leaders that they are not above the law adding that the court has the powers to summon them before it in order for them to explain their uninformed positions.
“The court has the powers to summon them to court and hold them in contempt of court because it is not responsible for any delay in disposing of this matter. In fact, the court has sacrificed some dates in its diary to accommodate this case this year since no dates were available to hear it this year. It is disingenuous of those political party leaders to then falsely accuse this court of delaying the finalisation of this matter,” Moroka said.
He added that because the case involves elections and carries a lot of national interest, it should be dealt with expeditiously before the end of the year even if it means during weekends.
“I advise those political leaders to therefore stop blaming this court for not effectively dealing with this case. They should know that they are not above the law and would attract the full wrath of the law should they continue with their reckless statements about this court. Mr Phuthego (attorney for the AG in the matter) please inform them to stop those false statements about this case,” Moroka warned.