Chief Justice under scrutiny

The Law Society of Botswana (LSB) chairperson, Tshekiso Tshekiso said as it stands, the law does not empower the Chief Justice to handpick judges to adjudicate over any matter. “We encourage the office of the Chief Justice to do all within its power under the law to allay legal practitioners' and litigants' concerns about judge shopping and to safeguard the much needed independence of the judiciary,” Tshekiso said.

He explained that as it appeared in recent times, the attention to the Chief Justice was drawn and attracted to cases according to the stature of litigants and calibre of judges allocated by the case allocation system. Tshekiso pointed out that in the past year, as the Society they witnessed an outcry from various sectors of public and some litigants over the appointment of judges by the Chief Justice to adjudicate over cases he considered to be of public importance to warrant the empanelment of more than one judge. “The controversial and ugly concept of judge shopping reared its head again as it did in the past. The case allocation system should remain in place to allow transparency,” he said.