01 Nov 2016

Minister of Defence, Justice and Security says the Judicial Stakeholders Conference is a perfect opportunity to evaluate achievements and failures in order to interrogate the use of concrete indicators against resources that have been availed.

Officiating at two day conference which was held in Gaborone, Minister Shaw Kgathi said the conference is convened with the specific objective of enabling the judiciary and its key stakeholders to meet to discuss specific issues relating to resourcing.

He noted that it therefore provides a platform and an opportunity for them to explore ways and means to improve an effective way they can; as the executive facilitates the judiciary.

Held under the theme; “Resourcing the judiciary and its key stakeholders”, he said this is fundamental to examining resource availability, and how they can expeditiously deliver quality service and access to justice.

“As the executive we hold strong view that the judiciary must be provided with adequate resources to enable it to be sufficiently resourced to effectively and efficiently deliver on its mandate.

In this connection the executive arm of the government has over the years ensured that the judiciary is catered for by allocating resources to care for their annual activities such as funding which has been increasing over time”, he said.
Current resource allocation system is defined in Section 119 of the Constitution of Botswana as supported by Appropriation Act and therefore minister Kgathi noted that as the conference deliberate on resourcing of the judiciary, it is imperative to look at what transformational strategies to put in place including legal and administrative transformation.

He said it should be noted that there is the lengthy and involved National Development Planning process.

He said the together these processes have underpinned the prudent management of the economy over the years.

With this he implored the conference to consider this very important contextual background as they look into the issues of resourcing the judiciary as resource allocation can only take place within this context and on the basis of the existing Constitutional provisions.

Meanwhile minister Kgathi said while government realise that a properly resourced judiciary in terms of personnel, transport and other resources should be able to deliver better service, people should be mindful of the financial challenges Botswana is currently facing which are unfortunately compounded by the recent drought, provisional liquidation of BCL and other competing demands have somewhat stalled the progress. ENDS