26 Jul 2022

The Bill of Rights must be expanded to guarantee people comprehensive protection, according to the University of Botswana (UB), through Professor Tachilisa Balule.

He is of the view that while the Bill of Rights, as contained in the Constitution, has served Botswana well, it must be revised.

Prof Balule told the  Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Review of the Constitution in Gaborone yesterday that this action would be in acknowledgement of the dynamism of law and commitment to move with the times. 

He said many fundamental rights were not included in the Constitution, some because they were not as clearly articulated then as they were today. 

“Socio-economic and cultural rights were not as clearly articulated when our Constitution came into effect. The Constitution should now include them as well as other fundamental rights such as the right to social security, the right to property and the right to education,” he said. 

Among the rights needing inclusion in the Constitution, he said, were the right to water and sanitation services; the right to quality healthcare services; the right to freedom of trade, occupation and profession; the right to property and the right to use the language and participate in the cultural life of one’s choice. 

Further to this, Prof Balule advocated the inclusion in the Constitution of children’s Bill of Rights that appears in the Children’s Act. 

He suggested that the expansion of the Bill of Rights should also include broadening of the grounds for non-discrimination to include gender, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic and social origin, sexual orientation and language, among other things. 

He also proposed for the Bill of Rights to be binding upon government as well as on natural and juristic persons.

Another presenter, Mr Tshepiso Ndzinge-Makhamisa, proposed that the Constitution should protect Batswana’s right to not be deprived of one’s citizenship and should have provision for unfettered rights to dual citizenship, which right he said should be extended to every Motswana. 

Mr Ndzinge-Makhamisa further spoke on the need to make the process of appointing judicial officers including the Chief Justice and Judge President of the Court of Appeal transparent and participatory. 

He proposed that the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) should conduct public interviews for all judicial officers in higher courts and that the appointment of such should be the preserve of the JSC, with the president making endorsements of nominations. 

Regarding the position of chief justice he said, ‘the chief justice position be cemented as the head of the judiciary. That the chief justice be the presiding judge in the apex court which is currently the Court of Appeal’. 

Mr Ndzinge-Makhamisa also called for establishment of the constitutional court, whose role would be to hear cases with a bearing on the Constitution.ENDS