The South African courts are not willing to allow the extradition of murder suspects to Botswana unless there is an assurance that they will not be executed if found guilty. Botswana through Attorney General, Athaliah Molokomme has made it clear that we will not entertain what are seen as unreasonable demands by the South African authorities. The deadlock is because of Botswana's death penalty whereas South Africa has abolished capital punishment. It is a known fact that countries that form the regional bloc SADC have fundamental differences in their laws. For example, Botswana has received bad press for flogging petty offenders with Zimbabwe making a big fuss about the matter.
While same sex relationships and abortion are legal in South Africa, many SADC countries are fiercely opposed to these and chances that there will be an agreement any time soon are very remote. These and many other conflict of laws make regional integration an uphill task in many parts of Africa. To make it worse, the differences are not restricted to law. They are found everywhere. This means that before we harmonise our socio-economic and political systems, we should find an effective way of overcoming the differences. It calls for a middle ground to ensure a win-win outcome. Though Botswana and South Africa sit at the two extremes in the capital punishment controversy, it might still be possible to find a way of handling associated problems in the spirit of regional cooperation and good neighbourliness. Otherwise, the stand-off will produce undesirable results. We suspect that the fear is that if Botswana makes an undertaking not to execute murder convicts extradited from South Africa, it would encourage what the death penalty is meant to deter. Murderers will try to escape the death penalty in Botswana by fleeing to South Africa because they know that even if they are to be brought back, they will not be executed. But which is worse? The murderers escaping to South Africa and never facing trial at all because they will not be extradited? Or the murderers facing justice in Botswana even if it means they will not be executed? So long as the stand-off obtains, it will be even more attractive for murder suspects to run to South Africa knowing very well that they are safe from Botswana justice. It may be different if they know that even though they will not be executed, they will nonetheless pay for their sins in a different way. We know that as a sovereign state, Botswana would not like to be dictated to by other countries in the way it applies its laws. But there is always room for compromise for the greater good to ensure just results.
