Help the judiciary do its job

| Monday April 26, 2010 00:00

We have seen how since the beginning of the Ian Khama presidency and Ndelu Seretse's rise to head the Ministry of Defence and Security the security fraternity has portrayed a renewed vigour and sometimes disconcerting excitement as exemplified by the current spate of extra-judicial killings reported.

All indications have been that the current leadership sees the security fraternity as the very heart and soul of their structure of leadership. We accept this. After all every type of leadership finds its own motivation. President Barack Obama predicated his presidency on restructuring the American foreign policy and the health care system. Khama is free to predicate his presidency on the efficacy of army men, and they are men, to deliver across all spectrum of society even where they do not have any acquired skill.

However, we take exception to the Executive, when in its obsession with intelligence apparatus, soldiers and the police in that order, works to compromise the work of the Judiciary. Just because the accused are men drawn from the Presidency's and the Ministry's favourite institution, the security and intelligence fraternity, it does not mean that the law should not apply on them. On Friday as the court adjourned on the Kalafatis case, Magistrate Lot Moroka declared that the four accused be summarily arrested and put into custody. Moroka was not wrong to assume that his word would be taken seriously. After all he is a Magistrate, in a court of law. The judiciary, at least according to the Constitution, holds the power to adjudicate on these matters. It is for other arms of government to implement the decisions of the Judiciary. So Batswana expected the four men to be immediately arrested at the earliest possible time. However, the men walked out of court to freedom. They stood about smoking their cigarettes. They chatted to each other. Not only that, some of them took to the streets, chasing photographers and other media professionals to mete out violence on them.

The members of the security, standing there like hardened criminals, for that moment showed the attitude that this country's security fraternity, under the implicit protection of the Ministry and the Presidency has towards the rest of our society.

The security men were left to their devices. In fact, they jumped into their car and drove away. There was no arrest conducted on these men at least in the way the court had ordered. If we can organise police officers to arrest a man accused of stealing a billy goat immediately the court says so, how is it possible that when men accused of such a violent crime have to be arrested there is no will to do so? Are they untouchable? How could they get away with this? The Executive, especially President Khama and Minister Seretse have to stop and think about this matter in a serious way, unless of course they do not really care about the import of such actions and the implications for this country's Constitution.