22 Mar 2023

Industrial Court judges are regularly trained to be at par with emerging trends in labour relations in order to handle cases competently, says Minister of Justice, Mr Machana Shamukuni.

Minister Shamukuni said this when he responded to Members of Parliament’s contributions to the Industrial Court’s budget proposals for the 2023/2024 financial year on Tuesday March 21.

Mr Shamukuni said labour disputes must be presided over by competent judges so they can deliver fair judgements.

He said the labour court was a specialised court of law and equity mandated to settle trade disputes as well as to secure and maintain good industrial relations.

“Industrial peace is an important attribute to a developing economy, therefore the court is mindful of the country’s need to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which contributes to the country’s development efforts,” he said.

As such, he said investors were considerate of the country’s industrial relations and would only invest in a country when satisfied of the labour laws in place.

Despite the fact that the court was fairly a new institution since it was established by the 11^th Parliament in 2016, Mr Shamukuni concurred with MPs that its services were limited and therefore difficult for some people to access them.

“Our desire is to increase our resources and move at the desired speed. Funds and other resources permitting, efforts will be made to establish the court’s branches at other localities across the country,” he said.

Currently the court is located at Gaborone, Francistown, Palapye, Selebi Phikwe and Maun.

“We also deploy our services through circuit courts to reach out to all corners of the country.”

In relation to the dispute resolution process, Mr Shamukuni said labour issues were to appear first before the Commissioner of Labour, where mediation was emphasised before engaging in the litigation process.

“The Commissioner of Labour must in every way possible encourage the disputing parties to resolve their issues through mediation and ensure that decisions taken are enforced,” he added.

He further acknowledged the lengthy turnaround time, adding however that efforts were being made to resolve labour dispute amicably and within a short time. “We are working on reducing time taken to resolve matters in compliance with the international standard of three months,” he said.

Between April last and February this year, the Industrial Court had 1 042 pending cases.

However, he said efforts were being made to address the cases backlog despite shortage of resources. “One of the proposed developments is to use digital platforms to enable virtual hearings and fast-track resolution of cases. The ministry has also engaged a consultant to review the current status of the judiciary in order to align its processes to current trends and improve on case disposal systems, by so doing addressing the current challenge of case backlog,” he said.

Again, he said the ministry would in the near future present to Parliament the Industrial Court bill, which would go a long way in addressing the current existing gaps, some of which were of concern to legislators.

“We hope to come up with a comprehensive bill closing all the identified loopholes,” said Mr Shamukuni.

Currently, he said the Industrial Court had engaged 10 judges and was hopeful that the number would increase in future.

On the concern that industrial litigations lost the element of equity when appealed to the Court of Appeal (CoA), Mr Shamukuni assured Parliament that the CoA had competent judges to fairly deal with labour issues. 

He said some of the CoA judges had previously worked at the Industrial Court.

He further admitted that his office was aware of the public outcry relating to enforcing court orders by litigants. 

“We are in the process of enquiring on the possibility of engaging sheriffs at the Administration of Justice to serve court orders on behalf of litigants. 

The move will go a long way in speeding up cases and reducing the current backlog,” he said.

The minister also assured legislators that labour laws were being reviewed by the labour laws review committee, adding ‘therefore the review will consolidate labour laws to also address some of the gaps identified by the legislators’.

For the 2023/2024 financial year, the minister had requested over P58 million under the recurrent budget and development budget of over P607 000 for the Industrial Court.

He indicated that the proposed development budget would cover expansion of Gaborone division, establishment of Kanye semi-permanent court, fleet expansion and customisation of Maun court room, furnishing as well as installation of the local area network. Ends