08 Feb 2015

The chairperson of Law Society of Botswana (LSB) Mr Lawrence Lecha has hailed the department of administration of justice for addressing forum shopping.

Forum shopping is a system whereby an attorney registers a case with the High Court and if he learns that his case has been allocated to a judge he does not prefer, he will withdraw the matter and register again or will simply register his case in more than one High Court to get a most preferred judge whom he can easily “go along with.”

Speaking at the official opening of the 2015 Legal Year recently, Mr Lecha said forum shopping threatened the independence and the integrity of the judiciary.

Last year the chief justice Mr Maruping Dibotelo expressed displeasure at forum shopping and automated system (Case Management System) was touted as a tool which could deal with issues of forum shopping.

Mr Lecha also appreciated the fact that the Rules of the High Court were amended to make withdrawal of a matter once allocated to a judge more difficult. 

However he said with all the measures in place to do away with forum shopping, it was of concern that the Court of Appeal allocation of cases was not automated.

He observed, the Rules of the Court of Appeal unequivocally provide that the judge president of the Court of appeal is single-handedly tasked with allocating matters to the Justices of Appeal.

Mr Lecha therefore said given the importance of perception and the central role of the Court of Appeal, the Society’s position was that the practice that obtains in the High Court should apply to the Court of Appeal.

With regard to delayed delivery of judgments, he said the society noted with appreciation that the problem had been acknowledged by chief justice and Court of Appeal.  He therefore said  they propose an amendment to the High Court Rules to provide for judgments to be delivered within three months as was that case with the Court of Appeal.

Turning to the Rule of Law, he said; “the society this year again reiterates its position on the undesirable of self-help and the fact that it compromises the rule of law. 

We again condemn all functionaries of state who continue to circumvent the courts and take the law into their hands.”

Self-help, whether through extra-judicial killings, torture, unlawful detention or harassment has no place in a nation that professes so loudly it’s belief in the rule of law, he said.

He said the society believed that rooting out the culture of impunity that seems so prevalent could go some way in restoring the culture of respect for the rule of law that was so deeply embedded in the psyche of Botswana. On other issues. ENDS