26 Sep 2018

The Registrar and Master of the High Court, Mr Michael Motlhabi, says the Administration of Justice (AoJ) is considering setting up a commercial court to increase rate of disposal of cases.

Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on September 25, Mr Motlhabi said while there were no timelines as to when such a court would be set up, having it in place would enhance efforts to improve the ease of doing business in Botswana since it would contribute to the speedy disposal of commercial disputes.

The registrar agreed that the slow rate of case disposal had potential to scare-off prospective investors.

Still on the delays in case disposal, Mr Motlhabi said the AoJ was in the process of setting up a unit whose mandate would be to segregate cases according to the stage of litigation at which they were. He said until there was a scientific method of segregating cases in this manner, concerns on delays on case disposal would continue to prevail.

He hastened to indicate that some cases added on to the numbers of cases before the courts while some of those cases had simply been registered but not in a state to be actually heard.

As for the numbers of judges, Mr Motlhabi said the department’s establishment register provided for 30 judges.

He said the AoJ had recently floated adverts for four positions of judges, this being a step towards reaching the full complement of 30 judges.

On the concern that the BCL liquidator was not being helpful in getting investors to buy the mine, the registrar told the committee that to address such concerns, creditors would apply to the courts to have the liquidator relieved of his duties.

He said removing a liquidator if it was being felt that he was not doing enough to advance the interests of creditors was not tantamount to interfering with his work, hence any party not content with his work could approach the courts to have him removed. ENDS