It may be even more pertinent however to suggest that we have not previously had a Chief Justice whose denunciation of all those involved in the practice of Forum/Judge shopping touched many involved at different levels in the judicial system. Was he suggesting that all those people are tainted by corruption or that the practice itself is implicitly corrupt? Either way, it is an astonishing scenario. It is probable although the linkage is as yet unclear, that the issue of capital punishment, which generates particularly strong opinion either for or against, is a central element of the divisions in the judiciary which have now so publicly emerged.
Almost from nowhere, we were suddenly told (incorrectly) that a practice that was seemingly set in stone, had somehow been abolished. It hadn't been abolished, of course, as we now know but it had been heavily questioned by one Judge but even more pertinently, had also been quietly set aside over a longish period by the Court of Appeal itself. That this Court should have been convinced that the High Court's death sentences were unsafe and should be reduced must prompt major concerns on the part of the general public. But it also needs to be asked how it is possible that so many years after Independence it is only now that a Judge has publicly argued that the death penalty is a disproportionate sentence and is both harsh and cruel. In retrospect, it may seem surprising that this particular stage has been reached now and not, for instance, in 1999 when the Judiciary was saved from criminal disaster with the last minute reprieve from hanging of Thabologang Maauwe and his co-accused Gwara Brown Motswetla.
