27 May 2018

President Mokgweetsi Masisi has officially opened Kanye Magistrate Court.

Speaking at the event on May 25, Mr Masisi said the state-of-the-art facility worth over P72 million was a testimony of government’s commitment to infrastructural development and a concerted move towards the attainment of a 21st century judiciary, which was responsive to the aspirations and needs of Batswana.

Mr Masisi said the beauty and stature of the court were not only in keeping with the Administration of Justice’s vision of achieving a world class judiciary, but would also significantly alter the landscape and ambience of Kanye.

President Masisi explained that the construction of the court could not have come at a better time given that the Administration of Justice in recent years expanded and developed its services to Kanye residents by introducing specialised services such as special stock theft court, special traffic court and juvenile court, among others.

He explained that Kanye had over the years transformed in terms of population and economic growth, which in turn brought with it increased and concomitant demand for diverse services of the court.

He pointed out that Kanye magisterial staff complement had also increased, thus necessitating a corresponding infrastructural development since the rented premises, which were being shared with other departments, could not cope with the workload, something he said, had a direct negative impact on service delivery.

Mr Masisi said the court was one of the facilities that had been completed as part of government’s efforts to improve access to services of the Administration of Justice.

He said the nation prided itself in upholding the rule of law, good governance and respect for human rights and would continue to do so.

That, he said, was underpinned by the fact that the nation’s democratic tradition was founded on the constitutional separation of powers between the Executive, Judiciary and the Legislature.

Mr Masisi said the construction of the facility would enhance access to justice by taking services closer to the people, but challenged the magistrates and staff to re-double their efforts to efficiently and effectively use it promptly when dealing with cases, without delays in pronouncing legal decisions.

“Justice must be delivered in good time and people must not be inordinately kept in remand prison longer than necessary,” he warned.

President Masisi stressed that backlog of cases, especially criminal cases at the magistrate courts must be dealt with head on by the judiciary in collaboration with stakeholders, adding, “Justice is sweetest when freshest and justice delayed is justice denied.”

Mr Masisi said respect for the Constitution was an indispensable hallmark of good governance in any democracy.

Mr Masisi however, said he was aware of the constraints that negatively affected the operations of the Judiciary such as limited financial, human and material resources and pledged unwavering commitment in realising the vision and project implementation, resources permitting.

President Masisi further assured the gathering that government would continue to interact and engage with the Judiciary and its key stakeholders at various fora and platforms with a view to capacitate them to a level where they could meaningfully and effectively render services to the public.

He appreciated the role of the courts and also recognised the fact that business drew confidence from the institutions which he said were increasingly accessible to the wider populace across the country.

Mr Masisi has meanwhile urged the employees and users of the facility to make a deliberate choice to do things right and establish it and similar others across the nation as centres of commendable service to members of the communities they served.

He also encouraged the users of the facility to take care of the people and their health as well as furniture and staff houses to ensure they remained in a good state of repair.

Mr Masisi had prefaced his address by congratulating the chief justice, Justice Terence Rannowane on his appointment and assumption of duty on May 1.

President Masisi had in the same vein extended gratitude and goodwill to Justice Rannowane’s predecessor, Justice Maruping Dibotelo who had performed the ground breaking ceremony to mark the construction of the facility about two years ago, for his visionary leadership and dedicated service to the nation, spanning many decades.

Minister of Justice, Defence and Security, Mr Shaw Kgathi for his part said the opening of the court would usher in the necessary impetus to policies and programmes aimed at enhancing access to justice in the country, underpinned by result-oriented processes, systems, initiated and implemented within the Judiciary Mr Kgathi, to this end, implored the registrar to ensure stakeholder collaboration by building strong collaborative structures with key stakeholders for exchanging ideas and sharing operational challenges at both local and regional levels for the achievement of speediness in justice delivery.

Mr Kgathi argued that one of the key performance indicators under the thematic working group on governance, safety and security was turnaround times with respect to the hearing of cases and quality of judicial decisions.

He said this would however have implications for the number of judges, magistrates, deputy registrars, court clerks and other support staff.

He therefore challenged the registrar to innovate and engage effectively on how to rationalise the available resources to achieve timeous delivery of justice.

Mr Kgathi commended the contractor, Hitecon Construction for delivering the project within time and budget and advised the registrar to develop a regular maintenance programme for the facility rather than waiting for it to dilapidate, which would be costlier.

Justice Rannowane for his part said the project was one of the major projects under the National Development Plan 10 which were frozen due to global economic recession.

He said he was grateful that government implemented the project upon economic recovery.

The court consists of three spacious modern courtrooms, magistrates’ chambers, registries, space for safe keeping of court records, children’s court, holding cells, attorney consulting rooms, witnesses’ rooms, four staff houses and a library among others. ENDS