Boko to table motion on judicial crisis
Pini Bothoko | Tuesday February 21, 2017 10:28
Last week, Justice Abednigo Tafa ruled that Parliament has abdicated its responsibility to prescribe the number of judges of the CoA as enjoined by the Constitution, and that the President has no such powers.
Yesterday Boko, who is also the president of the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change and MP for Gaborone Bonnington North, said he was unable to move the motion because he had to follow Parliament procedures.
Boko stated that it was important for Parliament to set out some bright lines in the appointment of judges generally but to the CoA in particular.
“To leave this matter unmapped would be to give a blank slate which invites or encourages abuse. It is also important to circumscribe executive involvement in the process,” reads Boko’s written motion that Mmegi is in possession of. The motion will seek to appreciate the role of the executive in the appointment of judges in line with practices in the Commonwealth.
“This is because this practice has its roots in the former Westminster system of judicial appointments. For the United Kingdom, the system existed until the Constitutional Reform Act 2005,” writes the LoO.
The motion continues to state that the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 eventually established a judicial appointments commission responsible for the selection of a single candidate in respect of any vacancy.
Boko stated that the former Westminster system of judicial appointments has been replaced by a more open and transparent system in which the selection decisions are entrusted to a commission rather than the executive.
He said to bring the discussion home, the Botswana system of appointment at the CoA is far from transparent.
“It is not just unsatisfactory, it is totally unacceptable in this day and age. It is obvious somebody has abrogated to himself the powers of a Lord Chancellor in our country,” Boko states. He writes that such a person has made his personal idiosyncrasies seem as if they were the expressions of a collective will of Botswana.
“We must find and seriously admonish such person. We must not stop there. Our Parliament has the power, and now, the opportunity to correct this anomalous state of affairs.”
Boko added: “No criteria have been publicised for appointment to the Court of Appeal. Little wonder that for its entire life, this court has been manned, literally by males of predominantly white skin tone with smatterings of blackness here and there”.
He said to raise these realities and point them out is not to be racist or xenophobic but for Batswana to assert themselves as citizens of this country and to say enough is enough.
“Our people have been consigned to the backwaters of all that concerned them and their country. The time for our attorneys to live lives of exilic marginality in their own country must come to an end,” reads Boko’s motion.
The motion seeks for Parliament to script a fresh and empowering narrative for Batswana attorneys and advocates.
Meanwhile, it is not clear whether the Speaker of the National Assembly, Gladys Kokorwe will allow the motion to be tabled during the ongoing budget debates, which have a tight schedule.