Etcetera II

SANDY GRANT | Monday March 29, 2010 00:00

This is an extract from my now out of print book, Etcetera 1991-1997, which I  re-produce in his honour and his memory.

'It seems to be the general line that the Appeals Court's recent judgment represents a disaster for Kgosi Seepapitso and a triumph for Minister Chapson  Butale. Understandably so, given Justice Aguda's damning assessment that: 1.  Seepapitso's is a record of a despot, a trouble-maker and of someone with little respect for either the law, for peace or for good order, and  2. the High Court's decision that the Minister's suspension order was procedurally correct, fully justified and in no way dictated by malice.

If this particular decision had been made immediately after Seepapitso's suspension it might have settled the matter once and for all, and in the government's favour. But it wasn't. It is made now when Seepapitso is back in office and when the government was in a position where it could only lose, whatever the outcome of the Appeals Court hearing. If, for instance, the Court had decided against Seepapitso and  had upheld the validity of the suspension, the government would have been hard-pressed to explain why it had ever re-instated him. If, on the other hand, the Court had ruled in Seepapitso's favour and decided that his suspension had been legally incorrect and unjustified, the government would have appeared initially wrong but subsequently right.

It couldn't have it both ways. Most reports have seized on Justice Aguda's remarks as evidence of a remarkable government victory. It is nothing of the kind because these remarks, from a political point of view, have come at entirely the wrong moment. Indeed, it is the very harshness of this judgment, which creates the problem. It is one thing for a government to suspend, say, an  ineffective Chief. It's quite another to reinstate, after suspension, a Chief who is later described by a High Court as an unmitigated scoundrel. What should this government do now?

Re-suspend the despot and risk the inevitable re-mobilisation of local support? Or continue to tolerate in regular legal duties an individual who has been described by an Appeals Court judge as someone with little respect for the law? But that, in no way, marks the end of the problems. Twist and turn as much as one wants and it remains impossible to reconcile the opposites. If Seepapitso's 28-year rule has indeed been so despotic, it would stand to reason that the people most affected, the Bangwaketse, would have had  him out of office long ago. Failing that, they would hardly have failed to celebrate his overthrow, their release from years of bondage and their appreciation of government's intervention.

They did precisely the opposite. Not only did they fail to celebrate; they remained unmoved in their preference for the opposition Botswana National Front and mounted an effective campaign to persuade the government that Seepapitso be reinstated. Further they decided that, until this happened, they would not cooperate with Leema, Seepapitso's son who the government, incredibly, had appointed to succeed him. The immediate result of this particular decision was that the entire system of traditional law was brought to a halt and a huge backlog of unheard cases began to build up. Ironically, therefore, it was Seepapitso's removal from office,¤ which precipitated the collapse of the very legal system for which he is supposed to have had such contempt.

What, too, are we to make of a government which has allowed, for no less than 28 years, so large a part of the country's population to suffer under the supposedly despotic rule of someone apparently so contemptuous of law and order? How could the House of Chiefs have elected the kind of person described by Justice Aguda to be their Chairman, year in and year out? And then have taken the first opportunity to do so again after his reinstatement? How is it that an entire district should have been thrown into disarray by his suspension and then be returned to normality as soon as he was reinstated?'   February 14 1996