Dingake:The bench's everyman(Part 1)

Lawyers and union leaders often like to say Botswana's justice system is like the Lotto - you either have Key or you do not! And not unlike the Lotto, most times you probably wont, but when you do, lucky you. As one union leader put it: "At least you are assured a fair hearing".

Botswana is a country of extreme dichotomies between the powerful and the powerless. The country was recently ranked in the top five in the league of inequality by income distribution by the International Monetary Fund. It has an income inequality Gini Index in excess of 0.5, one of the highest in the world. In such a country where economic power bestows other advantages and vice versa, a gulf exists between those favoured by political and economic power and those against whom this power is wielded. Then progressive judges like Justice Key Dingake of the High Court stand as the best chance the small man has against the big man.