PAC calls for Industrial Court of Appeal
Pini Bothoko | Wednesday June 14, 2017 17:28
He stated that its establishment would be specifically to deal with issues of labour as an extension of the Industrial Court. Keorapetse said this at the ongoing PAC on Monday. He stated that the Industrial Court was a law of equity and it was not bound by strict rules and regulations of procedure and technicalities. He questioned, “Isn’t this lost when litigations appeal to the court of appeal, which it’s just a court of law bound by technicalities and rules of procedure”. Keorapetse further said when there is a court of appeal to deal with issues from the industrial court, there would be consistency in the jurisprudence.
“Trade unions and workers who litigate at the industrial court do not trust the court because it delayed justice and they did not trust judges who are appointed secretly in a dubious process,” Keorapetse said. He also asked whether it was not international best practice for the appointing authority to appoint judges of the Industrial Court acting on the advice of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
The Industrial Court’s acting registrar Segomotso Mothotho said it made sense to look into the matter to improve so that a case decided on equity and law is subjected to the same standard at appeal. Commenting on the issue of the appointment of judges of the industrial court, Mothotho said it was and may be worth looking at it for improvement.
Keorapetse also argued that the JSC must be an improved body with diverse representation without being dominated by the executive. He said currently JSC consists of Judge President of the Court of Appeal, Chief Justice, Attorney General, Chairman of Public Service Commission, a person of integrity appointed by the President and a member of the Law Society. He said five are presidential or executive appointments and loyalists and one can be deemed to be independent of executive.
“Parliament, law department, lawyers and advocates must be represented and appointments must be done in a transparent manner so that judges of the industrial court and other courts are independent or seen to be independent,” Keorapetse said. He said the improvement would restore public confidence in the judiciary, enhance independence and integrity of the institution.
Meanwhile PAC raised a concern in the turn around time of cases at the Industrial Court especially in Gaborone pointing out that lawyers now prefer Francistown than Gaborone. Mothotho revealed that currently their backlog, which they consider reasonable, stands at 12.95%, stating that they currently have nine judges with seven in Gaborone and two in Francistown.
She said that not only the number of the judges collaborate to the turn around time but the system they use. “I have noticed that there are delaying rules that does not provide time to cases as usually cases are heard out of time. The huge problem is manual case of records management, we do it manually and it does not support file recording and file deposits,” Mothotho said.