26 Mar 2015

Parliament has been informed that government’s legal representatives on a constitutional case against three political parties represented in Parliament soon after the national elections were two attorneys from within the Attorney General’s Chambers and two advocates.

Answering a question from the MP for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi, the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Mr Shaw Kgathi, said a  combined amount of money paid to both advocates for their involvement in the matter stood at P138 624.

Mr Kgathi said costs were awarded against the Attorney General on the matter in an amount to be agreed or taxed between the parties.  He said Umbrella for Democratic Party (UDC) and Botswana Congress Party (BCP) had drawn bills of costs that were yet to be taxed.

The minister stated the decision by the Attorney General to launch the urged application was motivated by a number of factors, viewed holistically and not independently of each other. 

He said first due to correspondence exchanged between the BDP, UDC and the Attorney General on October 24, 25 and 26, 2014 respectively, regarding the constitutional validity of certain Standing Orders, the Attorney General suspected that a crisis would ensue and bring the business of parliament to a standstill.

Secondly, he said the Attorney General applied her mind to the respective positions of all those involved and came to the conclusion that standing orders 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.11, 4.14 and 6.1 offended certain sections of the Constitution.

“These sections of the Constitutions are Section 39, 59, 60 and 74. As principal legal advisor to the government, Attorney General launched the proceedings to obtain certainty on the matter,” he said.

Minister Kgathi asserted that it should be noted that the disputed standing orders related to the process for the selection of the Speaker of Parliament, without whom no business could be transacted by the National Assembly.

The absence of the Speaker, he said, also made it impossible for the Vice President to be endorsed, since endorsement should be made by the National Assembly.

Minister Kgathi further explained that Collins Newman on October 23, 2014 wrote a letter to the Clerk of the National Assembly seeking an unequivocal, unconditional written undertaking by October 24, 2014, that the said Standing Orders would not be put into practice in respect of the election of the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and the endorsement of the Vice President.

In the same letter, he said, Collins Newman attorneys advised that they act on behalf of the BDP and the President of Botswana.

MP Mmolotsi had asked the minister how much government spent in her case against the three parties represented in Parliament, what triggered the AG’s Chambers to take the matter to court and whether it was true that initially Collins and Newman attorneys had written asking Speaker to ensure that a secret ballot was not used in the election of the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and the endorsement of the Vice President. ENDS