This was expressed at the law society’s own opening of the Legal Year hosted at their head offices in Gaborone, as well as another satellite meeting in Francistown and Maun. The first burst of the bubble was from one of the senior members of the bar, Doreen Khama who said, “I have never in my life thought I would see a narrative or a statement telling me as a member of this society that a certain judge was given a bribe to rule in favour of a litigant. This is totally disgraceful, and I think it needs to be nipped in the bud and those who can nip it in the bud are all of us seating here today.” Former LSB council chairman and also senior member of the bar, Lawrence Lecha also stated that the issue of judges taking bribes is something they hear about quite a lot. “It is quite regrettable and therefore we should do something about it. We should pressurise the authorities to take action against those judges,” he said. Lecha is also of the view that judges who take bribes should be named and shamed. “There has been an ongoing discussion for us to name the judges.
However, the problem is that those who name the said judges will be victimised when they appear before court, so instead the names should be forwarded to the Law Society so we speak as one voice. So that the names are named as the Law Society so that individuals could not be put in a compromising situation when it comes to appearing before those judges,” he said.
