17 Dec 2017

Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Mr Shaw Kgathi has told Parliament that there are already existing specialised family courts in Gaborone and Francistown.   
Responding to a question in Parliament, Minister Kgathi said there was therefore no justification to establish such courts at the High Court level.

He highlighted that all matrimonial cases brought before the High Court divisions come as a package, and as such it was not easy to isolate the issues of custody and maintenance as they retain the same case number.
 

While admitting to the backlog, Minister Kgathi indicated that his Ministry had adopted a number of backlog eradication strategies to address backlog in the administration of justice, in alignment with the Directorate of Public Prosecutions and the Botswana Police Services.

“These include auditing of all cases around the 18 months age definition and the assignment of dedicated prosecutors to fast-track all cases that have been classified as backlog,” he said.

On the other hand, Minister Kgathi said his Ministry had set up special courts, which included specialised family courts in Gaborone and Francistown as well as stock theft courts in Francistown, Selebi Phikwe, Letlhakane, Palapye, Mochudi, Molepolole and Jwaneng.

He further said there were also special traffic courts in Gaborone, Francistown, Maun, Letlhakane, Selebi Phkwe, Hukuntsi, Jwaneng and Mochudi as well as small claims courts in Gaborone and Francistown.

The establishment of these courts, he said, was informed by the volume of cases and the need to expedite the disposal of such cases.

Minister Kgathi was responding to a parliamentary question by Francistown East Member of Parliament, Mr Buti Billy, who had asked the minister if it was not time to establish a family court to deal specifically with divorce, custody, maintenance and related issues, considering the serious backlog at Francistown, Lobatse and Gaborone. BOPA